


Advances in Thermodynamics

by Lexie



Category: Firefly, Iron Man (2008)
Genre: Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-03
Updated: 2010-01-02
Packaged: 2017-10-03 14:29:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexie/pseuds/Lexie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A chance meeting on a Rim planet called Three Hills changes Kaylee Frye's life forever. It may take him a while to realize it, but it changes Tony Stark's, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lollard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lollard/gifts).



> I asked for prompts a while ago, and [](http://agonistes.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://agonistes.livejournal.com/)**agonistes** told me to write Tony/Kaylee. I said 'MWAHAHA' at the time and happily started writing in things designed to make Sweeney twitch, but I think that she officially gets the last laugh, because this is eating my brain alive.

Kaylee Frye shields her eyes with her hand as the small transport sets down. The thrust kicks up fierce winds and pelts gravel at her, but her smile remains undimmed; the only concession she makes is closing her mouth. She's never liked the feel of grit under her tongue. Her hair's already pulled back; she's wearing patched coveralls over an old blue shirt. Her face and hands can't get much dirtier than they already are, she figures, and she pulls her goggles down over her eyes and stays put.

It's a real beauty of a ship; a Korai-class freighter, if Kaylee don't miss her guess. She's never seen one up close and personal; she's not sure one's ever been seen in Jefferson. It's a real rich ship, the kind of baby you hear about people having in the Core, all sleek and shiny. This one's banged up, but Kaylee can see the clean lines, and she can hear the purr of the one working engine. The other coughs and sputters, makes awful sounds like a dying cat, and Kaylee's impressed by both the ship and its pilot as it settles down smoothly. There's a thin line of smoke rising from the coughing engine; she picks up the canister of flame retardant foam waiting at her feet, and she scrambles around the side of the ship.

When she looks up from spraying the hell out of those sparks, the ship's ramp has lowered. Tucking the canister under her arm and letting the hose trail behind her through the dust like some sort of following pet, Kaylee steps around the ship.

The big man who walks down isn't quite what she expected; his clothes are real fine, but he doesn't look comfortable in them. His shoulders are too broad for his vest, his neck too thick. He's looking around.

Beaming, Kaylee steps up. "Wèi!" she says. "Welcome to Three Hills."

The square-jawed man glances at her, giving her a nod, and he continues to survey the tiny spaceport. Undaunted, Kaylee opens her mouth to try again – and then another man saunters out of the ship. _He's_ the sort of fella she pictured on a Korai. He's not that much taller than her, clean-shaven, with dark hair that Kaylee immediately wants to nudge out of his eyes. He's dressed all slick. Dust wouldn't settle on this guy the second it took a look at him, Kaylee figures; it'd run _screaming_.

"Good God," he says, looking at the tiny terminal, and even his voice is yōumĕi, with the clipped pronunciation of somebody from Coreward. "How quaint."

"Sir," grunts the first man, and he inclines his head toward Kaylee.

Mr. Yōumĕi looks down, sees her, says something to the bodyguard she can't hear, and then he jogs down the ramp. "Hi there," he says, and now that he's coming closer and turning a disarming smirk on Kaylee, he looks awful familiar. "You the welcoming committee?"

"Somethin' like that," chirps Kaylee, and she catches a brief flash of surprise across his face when he hears her voice. She suddenly wishes she wasn't wearing her daddy's coveralls. He extends a hand; she shifts the canister to her other arm and reaches out. Her handshake is firm, her hand small and callused and lined with dirt, machine oil under her fingernails. "Welcome to Jefferson."

"Xièxie nĭ," he says, and she can't help but notice that for somebody looks like a shēn shì, he's got rough, strong hands. "Listen, you got a hospital around here? My pilot's injured."

"Nearest hospital's in McGovern," says Kaylee. "I can wave Doc Light; he can be here in a half hour, if he ain't out deliverin' that calf for the Beaufords." She looks up at him, all wide-eyed concern. "Your pilot ain't hurt bad, is he?"

He half-smiles. "Oh, I think he'll live. Would you do me a favor? Tell the good doctor that I'll make it well worth his while if he can get here in fifteen minutes, calf or no calf."

She was right. There's somethin' _real_ slick about this guy; that request was a hell of a lot more charming than it had any right to be. "Sure," says Kaylee. "I can do that. Hold here for a half a second, okay? I can go put in that wave."

"Certainly," says Mr. Yōumĕi, and Kaylee turns away to head for the terminal.

Doc Light ain't happy to be pulled away from the calving; at least, not til Kaylee relays the stranger's offer. With the doc's agreement ringing in her ears, Kaylee grabs a beat-up datapad off the desk in the office and steps back out into the shimmering heat.

The bodyguard's still standing right where she left him. Mr. Yōumĕi's sitting on the ramp beside a dark-skinned man who's got his feet pulled up and his forearms resting on his knees, his hands heavily bandaged.

Kaylee wonders if everybody from the Core is shuài.

The two men are talking, Mr. Yōumĕi definitely the louder of the two. As Kaylee gets closer, she sees that there's a thin trail of dried blood running down the pilot's face. She slows, hesitantly. "Doc's on his way," she says, and both men look up at her. "Oughta be here in ten minutes. I got some forms need fillin' out, but... hell, they can wait."

"This _is_ a small town, isn't it?" says Mr. Yōumĕi, holding out a hand. Kaylee hesitates again, then gives him the datapad. "You're the shipping agent, too?"

Kaylee's smile is dimmer; genuine but tinged with concern. "It's real quiet around here on a Sunday, outside of hayin' season. It's just me, an' Nels up in the tower." She looks at the pilot, trying to catch his eye. "Hey, you okay?"

He looks up, startled. Mr. Yōumĕi's eyes don't rise from the datapad. "Lady's talking to you, Rhodey."

The pilot ignores him. "Yeah. I'm good," he says, sounding part resigned, part rueful, and not at all like he's from Osiris or Ariel or Bernadette. "The controls got a little hot coming down." He holds up his hands to illustrate, then lowers them. "Thanks, though."

" 'The aforementioned manifest form 37-AJ must be contingent on the parameters of the blah blah _blah_,'" Mr. Yōumĕi reads off the datapad, taking some creative license at the end. "Is this supposed to _mean_ something?"

"A tāmāde genius and you can't fill out a shipping manifest," says Rhodey, looking over his shoulder. "I don't know why anyone lets you out of the house, man. It's asking you to certify that the cargo manifest matches what we're got on board."

Mr. Yōumĕi pulls the datapad to his chest, away from the pilot. "I knew that," he says. He looks right at Kaylee. "My pilot, he's a backseat form-filler. It's terrible; a very sad condition."

"How many times do I gotta tell you, I'm _a_ pilot, not _your_ pilot. I don't work for you." Rhodey points at the datapad with an aggravated, bandaged finger. "And the answer to number five isn't 1500."

Mr. Yōumĕi gets up. "Hogan, don't let him move," he says, stepping down from the ramp. "He's in shock."

"I am _not_ in shock," says Rhodey, but Mr. Yōumĕi is already a couple meters away.

Not doing a good job of hiding her mischievous, fascinated smile, Kaylee tosses an apologetic look at the pilot and the bodyguard, and she follows the main attraction. "She's a real pretty ship," she says, and she's beaming, her eyes lingering over the transport and drinking in every last bit of her.

"There's one way to put it," says Mr. Yōumĕi. "She's definitely that."

Kaylee's eyes dart to him and her smile slips, just a bit, at the condescending tone. "Listen, you need to put in any more waves?"

"Just a mechanic," he says.

"Already done."

He glances up from the datapad. "You _are_ efficient, aren't you?"

She smiles, wiping her hands on the thighs of her coveralls and pushing her goggles up her forehead. "My daddy says I got an organized head up on my shoulders, but I just like things to make sense."

"Well, Miss Organized Head," says Mr. Yōumĕi, "why don't you and your shoulders try making sense of this mess?" He thumbs at the datapad.

Kaylee grins, looking at it. "Oh, you just check that box, the one right there, then skip the rest and sign down the bottom. It's pretty easy, once you get the swing of it." She points. "The first one's your name, the second's the ship registration, third's the port you come from, fourth's how long you mean to stay on Three Hills, and the fifth definitely ain't 1500."

His stylus stills. One side of his mouth curves upward before he looks up. "Is that so?" he asks. "Care to enlighten me on what the answer definitely _is_, then?"

"I can't rightly say, not havin' seen the inside of your ship," says Kaylee cheerfully, "but the question's askin' how many passengers you got."

"The exterior's deceptive; it's a new model," he says absently, and he jots a note on the form.

She sets an unimpressed hand on her hip. "You can't expect me to believe you can fit 1500 people on the inside of a Korai-class freighter with twin Maddox 60 engines already takin' up all that space."

His eyebrows go up, too. "No," he says, studying her, and Kaylee tries real hard not to turn pink, trapped by those dark eyes. "Apparently, I can't." Then his eyes flick past her. "Aha," he says, signing his name. "It looks like _you_ may not be the only welcoming party after all."

Kaylee looks over her shoulder. Doc Light's hurrying toward them, medical bag in hand, and he's got Nels from the tower, the sheriff, Mr. Swope the councilman, and the mayor with him. She stares at them, then at Mr. Yōumĕi.

He dates the form with a flourish. "Duty calls," he says with forced cheer, and he hands her the datapad as he steps past.

"Nĭ hăo, sir," Kaylee hears the mayor say. "It's an honor for Jefferson to be hostin' you."

"Thank you," says the stranger, with that snake-charming smile of his, and he shakes the mayor's hand. "The fine welcome is very much appreciated. Now, gentlemen, if we could adjourn in this direction? If you're who I think you are, Colonel Rhodes could do with the attention."

_Tī wŏ de pìgu!_ Kaylee thinks, half-aware that her mouth is hanging open. _Colonel?_

The crowd of men step past her, already laughing at something the offworlder has said.

She looks down at the shipping manifest in her hand.

> NAME: ANTHONY STARK

Kaylee's fingers fly to her mouth.

Passing, Tony Stark winks at her.

* * *

**Chinese translations [from [here](http://www.purplebrickroad.net/rp/mandarin.html)]:**  
Wèi! – Hey! [Standard greeting/exclamation]  
Yōumĕi – Elegant  
Xièxie nĭ – Thank you  
Shēn shì – Gentleman  
Shuài – Cute; handsome  
Tāmāde – Fucking  
Nĭ hăo – Hello [formal]  
Tī wŏ de pìgu! – Kick me in the ass!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two mechanical geniuses in one small space.

Kaylee hears the voice before she sees anybody. A huge ZAP! echoes down the freighter's open ramp; it's followed closely by "_Gaīsĭ! Cào nĭ zŭxiān shí bă dai,_ you _chùsheng xai-jiao de xiang huo_ useless sack of _gŏushĭ!_" Something thumps. "_Gāoyáng zhōng d—_"

_Don't sound so_ yōumĕi _now,_ Kaylee thinks smugly. She walks up the ramp, stopping before stepping in. "_Nĭ hăo?_" she calls.

Something clangs, followed closely by footsteps. Tony Stark steps into the small cargo bay, his hair slicked back and his sleeves rolled all the way up. Kaylee's face is bright; her eyes may linger a second or two too long on his biceps. She's glad of her trousers and fitted pink shirt, clean hair and scrubbed face.

"Yeah, hi," says Stark, and Kaylee doesn't miss the impatience. "Can I help you?"

"Hi, Mr. Stark." She waves at him.

Stark squints, then recognizes her. "--_Wŏ de mā_, you're actually a person under all that dust," he says, wiping his hands on a rag as he steps toward her. "Highly unexpected. Hi there--"

After the awkward pause goes on five seconds too long, Kaylee supplies, "Kaylee. Kaylee Frye."

"_Wèi_, Miss Kaylee, Kaylee Frye," says Tony Stark. "I've got a question for you."

"For me?"

"I don't see any other you's around. Where's my mechanic?"

Kaylee hefts her toolbox and smiles sunnily. "Right here."

"--Excuse me, what?"

"Can I--?" He nods, and she steps into the bay. "My daddy's the best mechanic this side of Jiangyin," she says, and if she talks uneven as she tries to look at every part of the ship at once, Stark is enough of a gentleman not to comment. "Only he's not feelin' too good, so instead, you got me." She turns to beam at him.

He regards her for a minute. "Yeah, well, _my_ usual righthand man managed to burn half the skin off his hands, so I guess we're even. Come on, I'll give you the grand tour." He turns, motioning sharply for her to follow. Ordinarily, Kaylee might take the time to appreciate his rear some -- and it's a mighty fine rear, she can see that at a glance -- but not when there's so much _shiny_ to look at.

It's the cargo bay and then a corridor, sure, nothing real special to see, but Kaylee's never seen a ship so white and pristine in her life.

The engine, though, that's not so pristine.

It looks like somebody took a real sharp two-by-four to it, combined with an explosive or six. Kaylee stops just inside the door and lays a hand on the bulkhead. "Oh, poor girl," she whispers.

Stark turns around, eyebrows quirked up. "Are you _talking_ to my ship?"

"Machines is people, too, you know," says Kaylee, setting down her toolbox and taking several slow steps toward the section of engine that has already been expertly gutted. "You listen, they'll tell you exactly what's wrong with 'em."

"I didn't realize I programmed this one to talk," Stark says dryly, but Kaylee can feel his gaze between her shoulder blades as she runs a gentle hand across the deepest rent in the engine casing.

"I heard her loud and clear when you was comin' down." Kaylee's voice is absent at best, as she spins the turbine up to take a look. "Engine'll need a couple days of work, but your auxiliary power converter's shot to hell, too."

He lays a grimy hand on the engine, catching her attention, and she glances up into his skeptical face. "One, you can't possibly know that; it's housed over there behind that _closed_ panel, and two," matter of fact, "no, it's not. Everything's in the green – it's fine."

Kaylee shakes her head. "No, it ain't." She walks across the engine room and opens the access panel. Something snap-hisses as it sparks with a flash of heat; a sharp pop and all the lights go out, and the ship goes silent.

"That – should not have done that," says Tony Stark's voice.

"Nope," she says cheerfully, producing a handheld light and switching it on. Her easy smile doesn't dim one bit as she pulls a pair of heavy-duty work gloves out of her back pocket. The air stinks of burned rubber and wiring; Kaylee can't see it real clear through the dim light coming from the open cargo bay outside, but she knows the interior of the panel is a flash-fried mess.

"Pass me a pair of pliers?" she asks.

Stark shoots her a look in the low light, but he pulls a pair out of his pocket. "Will needlenose do?" If his voice got any dryer, it'd be outside in the sand bowl.

"Yep." With light and pliers now poised in her other hand, she reaches into the panel with wirecutters, and she snips before Stark can stop her. "Problem is, wiring for the converter shouldn't be in the same junction as the shield generator to start with. It ain't too likely one blows out, in a Korai, but if one does, it takes the other one right along with it, and then you got yourself a _fèifèi de pìyăn_."

Kaylee swaps tools from one hand to the other. "_But_, if you rig it so your shield generator hooks up with propulsion on the left," she's deftly maneuvering two bits of wire, putting the light between her teeth just long enough to pull a strip of sticky conductor from her pocket, knead it between her fingers, and wrap it around the two connecting wires, "and your converter to your subspeed drive on the right…" She starts on the next two cables. "It ain't gonna get you nowhere fast, but it's the best I can do for you with what I got, and it oughta get you where you're goin' in one piece."

Stark is crouching at her side, his expression unreadable. When she goes to put the light in her mouth again, he extends a hand. "Allow me." She passes it to him with a bright smile, a silent thank you, and he holds it for her. "What would you do if you had unlimited time and supplies?"

She snorts, half-laughing. "Yeah, like _that's_ gonna happen."

"C'mon. Indulge me."

"Well, for starters, I'd rip out all this ugly and rewire the whole thing," she says. "From what I _saw_ on the engine, I'd fix you up a new grav boot, take a look-see if anything's tacking up the works in—" She fits the two sections of wire together; the lights flicker, then turn on and stay that way. The air scrubbers sputter to life. "—there." Kaylee rocks back on her heels and beams.

"Where in the 'verse did you learn your mechanics, Miss Frye?" Stark flicks off the small light, flipping it between his fingers.

"Well, my daddy taught me some," says Kaylee, stickying the wires together. "The rest – I just know it, I guess. I listen to an engine or watch a mule go and I can figure what needs fixin'." She sits back again, dusting off her hands.

She finds Tony Stark looking at her with an intensity that makes her cheeks hot. He's good at that. "That's a pretty impressive talent, Miss Frye," he says. "What is it that you do around Jefferson?"

"Odd jobs, mostly," she says, stripping off her gloves. "Refuelin' supply ships, fixin' tractors, that sort."

Stark chuckles lightly. "It's the life of the party out here, huh?"

Quadrillionaire inventor or not, Kaylee shoots him a look over her shoulder. "They're good folk, tryin' to make an honest livin'."

Stark lifts his hands in half apology, half mock surrender. "Didn't mean to imply otherwise."

Kaylee purses her lips. "Yeah, you did," she says. "You 'meant to imply' we're dull as a sack of rocks and twice as dumb."

Stark looks at her – and then he suddenly smiles. Kaylee stares at him. Is he crazy? Is he a crazy man? Is that what this is? "My God. Are you always this honest?"

She narrows her eyes. "Only when people're bein' mean."

Stark smiles faintly. "Touché. What I was wondering, and articulating poorly, was this – why not get the Alliance out here, build a hospital, seed in some industry?"

"Well," says Kaylee, a little less mad, "the Alliance ain't real welcome out here."

"Don't tell me I've walked right into a hornet's nest of smiling Browncoats," says Stark. "Should I _not_ have left a wounded Alliance officer out there with all those pies and cooing women?" He asks it flippantly, but Kaylee fancies there's a note of genuine wariness in his voice.

"Oh, it's nothin' like that," Kaylee tells him. She sets her hands on a panel but can't immediately find the latches. Stark reaches over and pops it open. "Colonel's dandy where he is. It's just that – folk around here, they don't take kindly to anybody stickin' their heads in, tellin' 'em how to live."

"And that includes the Alliance. Charming."

"You're bein' mean again," Kaylee says, from her position halfway inside the engine. It don't look pretty.

"Miss Frye, I've never been accused of being a particularly nice man." She hears him open the next panel. "Have you worked on a Korai-class before?"

Kaylee touches a dangling wire, and hisses at the shock she gets for her trouble. "Well, you could try."

"—_Shénme?_"

"It don't take that much effort to be nice, Mr. Stark," she says, her mouth set stubbornly. "And no, I only ever seen 'em on the news captures."

"You've only seem them on the news captures, and you're disassembling that engine like it was an erector set."

Kaylee's eyebrows rise sharply, even if she knows he can't see it while she's got her head in the engine. "A what?"

"Tut tut, Miss Frye, dig your mind out of that gutter. A _toy_, from Earth-that-Was," he says, but he sounds amused. "So, you think the problem lies in the design?"

"Of the ship? The design's shiny," says Kaylee, tugging a wrench out of her belt. "Real practical-like, 'sides where you can't get parts for somethin' like this out on the Rim. The wiring was a dumb mistake, real dumb, but the guy who designed this, he knew what he was doin'."

"Thanks."

Kaylee whacks the back of her head on the engine casing.

"Hey," says Stark. "No brains in my engine, Frye."

She sits up straight, staring at him. "_You_ designed this?"

"Guilty as charged." She should have guessed, she thinks, knowing what she does about the man; he looks like he thinks she should have guessed, anyway, grinning at her like a real smug _wánnào_.

Kaylee looks around, sitting on her feet, and then her smile begins its comeback. "It's real pretty," she says. "She's a beautiful boat."

"Stop, I'm blushing," says Stark, still smirking arrogantly, and Kaylee ought to be put off but can't help but grin back. "How long do you think it'll take to put this real pretty jigsaw back together?"

Her brow furrows. "Off hand? I'd guess somewhere 'round four days."

"That's a pretty conservative estimate," says Stark. "I think we can do it in two."

Kaylee shoots him a sidelong look. " 'We'?"

"I built most of the first prototype engine myself," Stark says dryly. "I'd _hope_ I could put this behemoth back together."

"Well, then," says Kaylee, and she grins at him with mischievous energy that borders on reckless. "Let's see what you got."

* * *

  
"Tell me, you ever worked on state of the art stuff, with state of the art tools?" asks Stark, on his back under the engine.

Kaylee laughs beside him, smudging her forehead black as she brushes her hair out of her face. "Depends what you mean by state of the art."

"Brand new, top of the line. That _is_ generally what 'state of the art' means."

"Nope," she says, reaching up to wipe her head with her cleaner sleeve.

"You wanna?"

Kaylee freezes with her hand halfway to her forehead. "_Duìbùqĭ?_" She rolls onto her side too fast and nearly slams her shoulder into the engine for the second time in as many days. "You offerin'—"

Stark turns his eyes upward again, away from her, making a show of being thoughtful. "I'm thinking a starting salary of somewhere around 70,000 a year, plus benefits, 701k, the bonus for moving – Stark Enterprises' dental isn't anything to sneeze at, either."

Her hands are covering her mouth.

Stark sighs. "I could use someone with your instinct on my staff," he says. "I'm looking for people to work on my top engineering team, building new forms of tech. And you don't tolerate _gŏu pì_. I like that in a mechanic." He tilts his head back against the deckplates. Airily: "Of course, I'd ask you to take some classes as a fallback for that gut of yours, and you'd have to come to Osiris—"

"Yes," says Kaylee, and she can hardly breathe, her face shining in its barely-contained glee. "_Yes_." Her smile threatens to go supernova.

"Are you going to hug me? Please don't hug me."

"Okay, okay," says Kaylee, beaming, but the second they're out from under the engine, she hugs the stuffing out of him.

* * *

  
"She's awful young, Tony."

"What are you talking about? She's perfectly mature. She walked right by a bunch of kids playing _wǔ shí_ yesterday and she didn't even slow down."

"She can't be more than 20."

"Actually, she's 19."

"That doesn't prove your point."

"It proves she's legally allowed to come and work for me."

"Just let her be. Leave her here."

"Let her be? Why would I do that? Rhodey, she's the single greatest mechanical genius I've ever seen. Present company excluded."

"And by 'present company' you mean you."

"Exactly."

"She's cute."

"You noticed? I didn't think you noticed cute girls anymore."

"She's too young for your _niúshĭ_, Tony. She's a sweet kid."

"I don't know what kind of life the Alliance has you living, but I don't generally carry _niúshĭ_ around with me."

"Tony, come on."

"You're just ticked off because this ship is very small, we have a long flight, and she talks more than both of us combined."

"You're not listening."

"Do I ever?"

"No."

"Well, there you go."

* * *

  
**Chinese translations [from [here](http://www.purplebrickroad.net/rp/mandarin.html)]:**  
_Gaīsĭ!_ \- Damn it!  
_Cào nĭ zŭxiān shí bă dai_ \- Fuck 18 generations of your ancestors  
_Gŏushĭ_ \- Crap  
_Gāoyáng zhōng de gūyáng_ \- Motherless goats of all motherless goats*  
_Yōumĕi_ – Elegant  
_Nĭ hăo_ – Hello [formal]  
_Wŏ de mā_ \- Mother of God  
_Wèi_ \- Hey [standard greeting/exclamation]  
_Fèifèi de pìyăn_ \- A baboon's asscrack [i.e. "a load of crap"]  
_Shénme?_ \- I'm sorry?; what?  
_Wánnào_ \- Troublemaker; rascal  
_Duìbùqĭ?_ \- I'm sorry?; excuse me?  
_Gŏu pì_ \- Bullshit  
_Wǔ shí_ \- Five stones**  
_Niúshĭ_ \- Cow dung

* Tony starts to say this but doesn't finish it; I have no idea what his half-finished sentence is actually saying.  
** Five stones is a traditional children's game played in Singapore, which is played with five small objects which are thrown up and caught in various ways. It's analogous to the modern game of jacks. I could not find the name of the game in Mandarin or Malay, so I fed 'five' and 'stone' into an English-Chinese translator. There's an excellent chance that _wǔ shí_ is not actually saying what I am trying to say. Many apologies!!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Her apartment's small, compared to her folks' sprawling place in Jefferson, but it's just fine for just Kaylee; she likes to think it's Kaylee-sized. It's just about the fanciest thing she's ever seen. The chandelier in the lobby floats._ Settling in on Osiris isn't as easy as Kaylee would have liked.

Osiris is the prettiest thing Kaylee's ever seen.

It's all high towers and shining metal; she pastes her face to the window as they fly in low through the city. Mr. Stark tells her if she doesn't watch it, her face is going to stick there; Kaylee tells him she wouldn't mind if it did, 'cause that'd mean she'd get to fly all the time, watch the stars in the black and the shiny new places. She catches Hogan's quick, faint smile in his reflection. Colonel Rhodes doesn't laugh, but she can hear the grin in his voice as he tells Stark – Tony, he calls him – _that'll_ teach him to be a cynic.

Sights like Osiris, they almost make Kaylee feel better about leaving Three Hills and her family behind.

They land in a private hangar. Kaylee knows Mr. Stark is rich, real rich, but she doesn't know _how_ rich til she sees that huge, empty hangar; all that wasted space on a world where you gotta elbow somebody when you wanna move enough to breathe.

It takes twenty minutes to drag her away from the couple of ships in that hangar; it's only accomplished by Mr. Stark threatening to order Hogan to throw her over his shoulder, and promising that she can come back.

Kaylee meets Mr. Stark's personal assistant right quick. She's the one who walks Kaylee through the employment and visa forms, all that stuff. She shows her to her apartment, takes her shopping.

Kaylee don't like her much.

She's a regular beauty alright, with legs that go on for days and real shiny teeth, but she's a cold fish, and Kaylee can tell she looks down on her. She doesn't exactly try to hide it, with all that staring down her nose and those snooty remarks.

Kaylee's face might fall an awful lot, but she doesn't say anything back. "Thanks, Miss Wilmer," she says, and she holds back as much of her hurt expressions as she can, til the brunette's back is turned.

Her apartment's small, compared to her folks' sprawling place in Jefferson, but it's just fine for just Kaylee; she likes to think it's Kaylee-sized. It's just about the fanciest thing she's ever seen. The chandelier in the lobby _floats_; she stares at it in transfixed awe, til Miss Wilmer nudges her along. Her apartment has got all kinds of tech that Kaylee has never even dreamed of, much less seen.

First thing she does is put up fairy lights.

* * *

  
_Two weeks_.

"_Wèi_!" chirps Kaylee, extending a hand. The dark-haired man stares at it for a minute, then at her. "Kaylee. Kaylee Frye."

"It's – nice to meet you, Dr. Frye." The man's handshake is significantly less exuberant than Kaylee's; he adjusts his glasses with his free hand. "I'm Eli Lynch, project leader."

She grins. "It's just Kaylee. Don't got no fancy titles."

The lone woman in the little group steps up to shake Kaylee's hand. "Lise Hsu. You're a doctoral candidate, then?"

"Nope," says Kaylee. "No fancy schoolin', neither. I'm takin' night classes at Williams."

"…Oh," says Lise Hsu faintly.

The rest of the engineers introduce themselves by their full titles.

* * *

  
_Two months_.

"It ain't right," says Kaylee Frye from the far end of the table, and every person in the boardroom turns to look at her.

Eli Lynch says, "You're going to need to be more specific than that, Miss Frye."

"It don't feel right," she says, and Lise quits frantically trying to gesture for her to be quiet, and covers her face with her hands. "When you kick that engine in gear, it oughta purr like a kitten's getting the best pettin' of its life, and it don't. There's somethin' catching on the inside."

"That would be a very serious flaw. Can you wave us all the read-outs?"

"It doesn't come up on read-outs," says Kaylee, and she can _hear_ people shift in their chairs. "That don't mean it ain't there!"

"You're very right. Can anyone else corroborate what Miss Frye is hearing? Anyone?"

No one can.

"Miss Frye, we work on scientific fact here, not guesswork. Do us all a favor, please, and don't bring this up with your–" The door opens and Tony Stark steps in, as smooth and _yōumĕi_ as the first time she ever saw him, only slicker in that suit and tie. "–Benefactor, alright? Mr. Stark!"

Kaylee'll ordinarily gladly pay attention to what Mr. Stark's doing (he's never boring, even from the distances she's been spotting him at ever since they hit Osiris, and he's still got a nice rear), but she's a little preoccupied with wilting.

Pete – a mere doctoral candidate, her fellow junior engineer – shoots her a sympathetic look across the table, and pushes one side of his mouth up with a finger. Kaylee smiles a little, game but fake, at him.

Her smile turns more genuine when Stark takes Eli's chair at the head of the table.

An hour later, when Stark is standing over the display unit with his sleeves rolled up, the engineers gathered around with datapads full of frantic revisions, Mr. Stark says, "Okay. Any other issues I should know about?"

Lise looks at Kaylee, quiet and warning. Eli shakes his head at Kaylee in a fierce '_Don't_' over Stark's shoulder. Kaylee clamps her mouth shut and traces a nonexistent pattern in the surface of the boardroom table.

"Fix the gravity boosters and the discrepancies in the shield generator, and we should be good for launch." Stark picks up his jacket and slings it over his shoulder. "Gentlemen – ladies – it's been a pleasure. Call me; we'll do lunch," he says flippantly, all in one breath, and he steps outside.

The room empties. Kaylee's one of the first out the door. She bites her lip, looking around to see if anybody's watching her, and then she slips down the hall, walking fast enough that it's almost a run. As she turns the third corner, she sees two familiar figures up ahead. "Mr. Stark!"

He exchanges a brief word with his assistant and turns around. "Well, if it isn't Miss Frye. Don't tell me: I forgot my stylus. You can keep it. Really."

"No, you didn't. Look, I know you're awful busy, but – you got a minute?"

"No, he doesn't," says Miss Wilmer coldly.

"Yes, he does," says Stark, and he lays a warm hand on Kaylee's arm and steers her around the corner. "What's on your mind, Frye?"

She studies him for a minute, a little more hesitant than she means. "You don't come down here real often, do you?" she asks.

"Here? No. It's all a little—" He gestures. "Gray, for me."

"But you said—"

"I said I'd be putting you on a special team that builds my designs." He's still got the freakiest ability to tell what she's thinking, and he still looks like nothing ever surprises or bothers him. "You're on it."

"I don't…" says Kaylee, and she sighs and stops. "Can I talk to you mechanic to mechanic, 'stead of mechanic to boss?"

He peers at her, in what she suspects is equal parts bemusement and interest. "Sure," he says. "Hit me."

"What'm I doin' _wrong_?" she bursts out. "I don't got a fancy piece of paper sayin' how much know-how I got, but I know machines, and I ain't _mean_, and—"

"No one will give you the time of day." She nods, quietly. "I hired you for your considerable skills, Frye, and because I thought you could shake things up around here."

Kaylee isn't entirely certain that he isn't talking to somebody standing behind her who happens to be called Fry. "…Me?"

"Yeah, _you_. They've gotten awfully _suǒ rán_ around here lately, and you know your stuff inside and out, and maybe even upside down, and you had the whole – frighteningly happy all the time, thing, going for you," he illustrates with a sweep of a hand, "and I figured you'd be a real shot in the arm around here."

"You're not helpin'," she tells him.

He talks with the tilt of his head almost as much as he does with his mouth. This particular head-tilt, combined with a flick of his eyes, is facetious as all hell. "If you _really_ want me to help, I can go back in there and _order_ them all to listen to you."

Her mouth sets. "Still not helpin'."

"Then you're just going to have to tough it out, Frye," he says. "They're academics. Tectonic plates change their minds faster than those guys do."

Kaylee doesn't like dramatics, but the only thing she hates more than shoddy work is shoddy work that puts people at risk. She takes the shot. "You really want me to wait when there's lives in danger?"

"—Well, that's spectacularly cryptic. By all means, continue to be vague."

She doesn't like dramatics and she doesn't want to tell tales out of school, take advantage of the fact that she knows Mr. Stark (sort of), get anybody in trouble, but there's things that need saying. "The starboard air filter on the _Tiān é_, it's—"

"Mr. Stark? Mr. Stark!" Dignified Lise Hsu comes scrambling up the hall, her hair out of its tie and flinging everywhere; Kaylee's eyes widen. "Sir, you had better come back."

* * *

  
The second they open the sound-proofed door, the design bay screeches, several alarms going off at once and blurring together. Kaylee's immediate instinct is to clap her hands over her ears, but she freezes partway there, because there's a stream of smoke trickling out of the _Tiān é_'s open ramp, and a dazed-looking Pete is sitting on the floor several feet away, as Eli shouts something she can't hear, and techs run from here to there.

Stark steps up. "Override code 93-WILC. Voice activation: Stark, Anthony." The alarms stop mid-shriek.

"Alright," says Stark into the sudden stillness. "Don't everybody start explaining at once."

"I, um," says Pete. "I thought Kaylee might be right, so I opened the access panel and switched it on, and something…" He makes an explodey motion with his hands.

Kaylee's fingers are covering her mouth.

"Who're you?" Stark says.

"That's – that's Peter," says Kaylee around her hands. "He's gonna be a doctor in biochemistry – Pete! Are you okay?"

He shoots her a shaky thumbs up.

Stark turns to her. "You have something to do with this?"

"I—"

"Kaylee tried to tell us that there was something wrong with the air filter, and none of us believed her," says Lise, and Kaylee could _kiss_ her. "Except Peter."

"That's because he's smarter than the rest of you combined," says Stark. "Now, can someone _please_ confirm that the _rest_ of my ship isn't about to spontaneously combust?" He heads toward the ship; Kaylee's about to follow, but Eli pulls her to the side.

"Miss Frye," he says, his mouth tight. "How convenient, that the air filter just _happened_ to malfunction while Mr. Stark was here."

Kaylee stares at him a minute, and then she yanks her arm back. "Are you sayin' what I think you're sayin'?"

"All I'm ' _sayin'_ ' is that you now look very good while the team looks very bad, and if I found out that you had anythi—" His low voice breaks off, abruptly, when someone else cuts in.

"I'm going to have to insist that you include me on any consultations here," says Tony Stark as he steps in, clearly aware that consulting is not what's happening. He looks at the distress in Kaylee's face, and he shifts his weight sharply. "Private, then? Alright, I'm no buttinski." He turns his back on Eli just as the engineer is about to speak. "Miss Frye. I have something I've been meaning to say to you for a while now."

"Yeah?" says Kaylee, her eyes over-bright. She crosses her arms preemptively.

"Come work with me."

She stares at him. So does Eli and half the team, who're all gathered around and have given up pretending they're not listening. " 'Less I'm missin' somethin' real important, I _do_ work with you, Mr. Stark," says Kaylee.

"No, you work for the company. I want you to come work with me. Subtle yet important distinction."

She watches him, slow and careful. "What's that mean?"

"It _means_, Miss Frye, that the good people here, their job is to make my designs suitable for consumption, public or otherwise. _My_ job, among other duties, is to come up with ideas that'll knock the 'verse on its _pìgu_, and then execute them."

"Execute the _pìgu_," she says dubiously.

"No, the ideas." He shifts again, folding his arms over his chest to mimic her posture. "Look – I spend a lot of time building and fine-tuning prototypes, and I could use a mechanically-minded girl Friday."

"…Huh?"

"For God's sake— a mechanic, Frye, I need a mechanic to help me out, and I think you're just the ticket, as long as you're quicker on the uptake when the conversation involves circuitry. You'd be working with me, full time, in my personal lab." Most of the engineers are pretty quiet in their astonishment, but Pete's poker face isn't so great; he sucks in a loud breath. "Think you can handle it?"

"You gonna be a gentleman?" Kaylee counters, and Stark laughs.

"Cross my _xīn zàng_ and prefer not to die."

She eyes Stark slyly. She may be starting to grin. "You really got a five-power energy converter with double flux in there?"

"Miss Frye, I invented the five-power energy converter with _triple_ flux."

Kaylee has heard legends about the kind of equipment that Tony Stark has in that lab, and she knows what kind of pretty comes out of it; her smile takes a turn toward dazzling, threatening to take over her entire face. "_Wŏ de mā_, _yeah_, okay, I'll work with you!"

"Good." Stark turns to Eli, shooting him an unimpressed look. "Lynch, consider Miss Frye poached, and consider yourself lucky that I'm taking her instead of handing your job to her. The next time something explodes that isn't supposed to, on one of my prototypes, I'm going to be a very unhappy man." Stark glances at the crowd of engineers and twirls his finger for a moment before pointing at Pete. "Parker."

"Peter," Pete corrects, hesitantly.

"Same difference. Nice work."

Pete smiles, surprised and bright. Eli Lynch's mouth opens and closes like some kind of deep-sea fish. The engineers stare.

Kaylee graciously accepts Stark's offered elbow and sweeps out of the design bay, feeling like a queen in coveralls.

"Thanks," she tells him earnestly in the hallway, squeezing his arm, "_Xièxie nĭ_, you won't regret it, I promise," and he snorts a laugh.

Stark slips his sunglasses on. "Don't thank me til you've worked with me, _băobèi_."

* * *

  
**Chinese translations [from [here](http://www.purplebrickroad.net/rp/mandarin.html) and a translator]:**  
_Wèi_ \- Hi  
_Yōumĕi_ \- Elegant  
_Suǒ rán_ \- Complacent, dull  
_Tiān é_ \- Swan [ship classification]  
_Pìgu_ \- Ass  
_Xīn zàng_ \- Heart  
_Wŏ de mā_ \- Mother of God  
_Xièxie nĭ_ \- Thank you  
_Băobèi_ \- Sweetheart


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _When Kaylee steps into the workshop for the first time, she's blinded by the sheer size of it; the cathedral ceilings, the half-finished mules and small craft and speeders lying gutted across the racks, the screens scrolling technical readouts, the worktables covered in sensitive parts and the finest equipment she's ever seen scattered across the entire room. Stark gives her the grand tour. She thinks he gets a kick out of her awe._

_Two months_.

When Kaylee steps into the workshop for the first time, she's blinded by the sheer size of it; the cathedral ceilings, the half-finished mules and small craft and speeders lying gutted across the racks, the screens scrolling technical readouts, the worktables covered in sensitive parts and the finest equipment she's ever seen scattered across the entire room. Stark gives her the grand tour. She thinks he gets a kick out of her awe.

He introduces her to the artificial intelligence running the mansion, and he says within five minutes that he regrets it, because Kaylee and Jarvis are talking a mile a minute, about technical specs and embarrassing stories (stories that'd be embarrassing if Tony Stark had anything approaching a sense of shame, anyway). For an A.I., Jarvis has got a pretty okay sense of humor. Kaylee likes him already.

So she gets the house access codes and the grand tour, and she appreciates the fountains and the vidscreens and the ocean view through the bank of windows, but where she _really_ falls in love is the garage.

She gets several workshop tables to call her own. Within a day, they're hopelessly cluttered, but she knows exactly where everything is; she can pick a catalytic converter out of a pile of joint plugs like it's nothing. She puts up a couple strings of brightly colored beads that her sister sent; arranges still captures of her family under a paper lantern.

Stark comes and goes, after that first day; she never _can_ tell when he's going to be in the mansion and when he isn't. But she always knows, for sure, that he isn't gonna be in the workshop when she gets in at eight every morning. It's a little nice. Just Kaylee, Jarvis, the robots, and whatever the day's project is; squinting at the image projector as she tries to work out the kinks in the airlock's holding mechanism, taking apart an engine. She puts on music and hums along when the rest of the band kicks in a minute and a half into the song (feels it rattle her ribcage).

She meets a _lot_ of women and a few men. It startles her some, the first time she lets herself in the front door and there's a brunette in the living room wearing a man's shirt and not much else, but after a while, Kaylee's an old hand. They're always confused and looking for their clothes (and Tony), and the presence of a bright-eyed, chipper girl with a Rim accent, walking around in stained coveralls like she owns the place, doesn't help that none.

Most of 'em, Kaylee can't figure what Stark sees in them, besides, well. What he sees. A couple are real sweet, though, especially the one or two she meets more than once. There's a blonde woman who laughs, after the third time Kaylee finds her in the kitchen, when Kaylee asks hesitantly if she's seeing Mr. Stark; she says that Tony's a dear friend, but she couldn't imagine making things official. It doesn't make Rae any less of a pleasant breakfast companion.

Colonel Rhodes comes by sometimes, usually trying to track down Stark when it's during the day, or out of uniform and a lot more easy-going at night. Kaylee's never met an Alliance man before, but she definitely never figured they'd be so – _friendly_ isn't the right word for what Rhodes is, but kind and generally well-meaning, and pretty warm. He's a slice of normalcy in long hours spent in a cliff-side techno-mansion, surrounded by all kinds of stuff Kaylee never even knew existed. Mr. Stark may only drink fancy whiskey, but Rhodes can tell her where all the best hole-in-the-wall takeout places are in the city.

As for Mr. Stark himself – he's erratic and Kaylee sometimes thinks he's a little crazy, but when you put him in that workshop, there's no denying he's an honest-to-God genius. Rhodes may get frustrated trying to get him places, but Kaylee's never got that problem; he'll sit in his workshop for hours, trying to get a transmitter to spark just right. He's a perfectionist, and he's not bad to work with (besides those days when he's being a pain and she wants to throw a spanner at his head and be done with it), and he still has a real nice _pìgu_.

Kaylee doesn't notice when Mr. Stark becomes Tony.

* * *

  
_Eight months_.

"_Kaylee_!" shouts Tony Stark, and he shuts off the welder and ratchets his faceplate up. "Kaylee, where in the _guĭ_ is the—"

"Station array's on the table," says Kaylee from behind, setting a mug down on the table and coming up beside. "I'm right here; you don't gotta _yell_, you know."

"I did, in fact, gotta yell, because I didn't know you were there." He spins on the stool. "Where have you been? Shirking your duties, taking over the universe?"

"Yep," says Kaylee cheerfully. "An' makin' tea. Brought you one." She wiggles her mug illustratively. Tony reaches for it and she swats his hand away, sashaying out of reach in stompy boots. "Nope. Yours is on the table."

"I let you take over one little universe and you grow a sense of entitlement," he says, groping behind his back along the table and coming up with his mug of green tea.

"Well, how many 'verses are _you_ queen of?" She rests her free hand on her knee and bends to peer at the exposed circuit hub on the mule. The back of her neck starts to prickle; she stares at the tangle of wires for a moment longer then turns around, but Tony is studying his tea innocently, his eyes nowhere close to her rear.

"At last count, sixteen," says Tony. "Or maybe seventeen; the jury's still out on whether the one where I'm a princess counts." He takes a drink and promptly spits it back out into the mug. "I thought you said this was tea!"

"It _is_ tea!" Kaylee retorts, shooting him an indignant look.

"No, it is equal parts machine oil and sweat."

"_Hey!_" She glares at him. "I didn't let no _sweat_ drip into my tea, Tony Stark; if it's so _lièzhì_, I'll just take it back." So saying, she makes a grab for it, but he covers the top with his hand and yanks it away.

"It has caffeine; it's either drink this or pipe it directly into my veins, and until I build a better hypodermic needle, I'll drink this." He takes a sip; manfully suppresses his wince. "Your sweat actually tastes like roses smell."

Kaylee pokes at him with a rolled up coil of tubing, which he dodges easily. "It's _tea_," she insists, lying down on her back on the mechanic's board, turning on its hover system, and pulling herself under the gutted mule. "Y'know, if you don't like it, you should _try_—" she grunts as she wrenches a bolt loose, "makin' your own sometime."

"Clearly, you've never tasted anything I made with my own hand," Tony says to her legs, which are the only visible part of her.

"Yeah, 'cause I like breathin'," says Kaylee, grinning into the alternator.

"I'm very close to the controls holding that thing up on the blocks, Frye."

"You like my face too much to drop a mule on it," she tells him cheerfully. "I could teach you, if you want."

His expression screws up. "To like your face? Or to drop a mule on it. 'Cause either way, I'm pretty sure I don't need lessons."

"No, _yúbèn de_." She laughs, and nearly pulls out the wire she's working with thanks to the sudden movement. "Cookin'. I'm sure it ain't nothing fancy like you're used to, and I ain't as good as my mama, but – I can do simple pretty good."

"Kaylee, why in the 'verse would I learn to cook for myself when I can have the best chefs in the Core do it _for_ me?"

" 'Cause you're you."

His eyebrows furrow. "What's that, some homespun folksy Rim saying, what?"

Kaylee sticks her head out from under the mule long enough to glare at him. "You said you wasn't gonna call me folksy anymore."

"Ah, see, that's where you're wrong, actually. We had an agreement, one where I stopped calling you folksy if you stopped calling me uppity, and I seem to distinctly recall somebody calling me an uppity so-and-so this morning."

"You were actin' all high an' mighty!"

"That may be, Frye, but if you get to call me on my _gŏu pì_, I get to occasionally call you on yours. That's just the way the world works."

She purses her lips. "Which world's that?"

"Mine."

"See? _That's_ what I'm talkin' about, when I say you're you."

"You've lost me. Is this going to go into who I am and why I'm here? If so, I'm going to need something stronger than machine oil sweat tea."

"You live in your own sorta 'verse, where everything's about you and everything comes natural to you."

"I don't know if I'd say _everything_," he says, modestly. "Just most things."

"You're gonna learn to cook, 'cause it'll drive you _kuángzhĕ de_ if you don't," Kaylee tells him, and her smile's a little slow, and maybe a little evil.

Tony scowls at her.

* * *

  
_Ten months_

"So I pull to the left?" asks Kaylee, and she tugs the stick as she says it. The stars dimly visible through the red glow start to spin and her stomach lurches; Rhodes lunges and grabs the stick, and the freighter evens out.

"No," he says, slowly letting go. "The right."

Kaylee sucks her bottom lip between her teeth. "Sorry."

Rhodey grins. "Kaylee, if you think you're the scariest student I've ever had, you're _fēngle_."

"That's 'cause you train daredevils," she says practically. "Fellas that wanna throw themselves around and such."

"Hey," he says, and she catches his faint, lopsided smile. "Some of us are pretty careful, you know. Even while we're throwing ourselves around."

"_Nuh_ uh," says Kaylee. "I flew with you, _wánnào_ Rhodes. I thought I was gonna die."

He looks bemused. "I was that bad of a pilot?" he asks.

"No," she says. "You're good. _Too_ good. I'm hittin' the—?" She raises a hand and holds her finger poised over the button, this time, instead of pressing it.

"The afterburners, yeah. Good." He squints at her in an amused way, one where Kaylee doesn't think he'd take as a compliment if she told him it reminded her of Tony (but it does). "What do you mean, too good?"

"People like me, people who're just learnin', we fly straight, right? 'Cause that's all we can do." She slaps the button. "But you _experienced_ pilots – you give people like me a hell of a lot of work," she says, cheerfully.

"You can start easing back on the ascent arc," he says. "You're gonna break atmo in a minute or two. People like you. Rookie pilots?"

"Mechanics," she says wryly, trying to settle how skittish the ship's shaking makes her stomach. Rhodey laughs, and she thinks that he oughta more often.

"Okay," he says. "Okay, I'll give you that."

Suddenly, the red glow suffusing the front window's gone; suddenly, it's just the black staring back at Kaylee as far as the eye can see, and all the air leaves her lungs in one breath.

Rhodey glances at her; she doesn't have to look away from the stars to hear the amusement in his voice. "Pretty nice, huh?"

"_Shì a_," Kaylee agrees, unable to tear her eyes away. "I seen it before, but—"

"But it's different when you're the one doing the flying."

She does look away at that, eyes flicking to Rhodes and his half-smile and his comfortable boot up on the control panel. "I was gonna say it's shiny every time, but _hăo_, that works, too."

He grins, rueful. "That'll teach me to put words in somebody else's mouth."

"Darn right it will," Kaylee tells him, grinning right back. "What'm I doin' now?"

"You'll want to stay on the same heading for the next five minutes," he says, gesturing out at the black. "Then we'll turn it around and start on a loop back."

She salutes him cheerfully.

Thirty seconds of companionable silence later, Kaylee says hesitantly, "So, listen, I was wonderin'—"

"If this is about Tony, it's like I've been telling people for years: I don't know," he says immediately, more weary than wary.

"It's not," she says. Immediately: "Well, maybe a little. Indirect-like."

He looks at her for a minute, then crooks his fingers in a 'come on, let's go' sort of motion. Kaylee brightens, just a little, but doesn't respond right away; she takes a few seconds to put her thoughts in order.

"He's got a still capture," she says, slowly, "of a woman. It's in his desk; I didn't mean to look—"

Rhodey sighs, sharp and exasperated. "Man, I _told_ him to put that stuff away before you went to work there."

"What? No," says Kaylee, and then she laughs, shaking her head. "_Aiyā_, no! Ain't that kinda capture. She was _mĕilì_; tall, red hair, lookin' down at something. Don't know how she could walk anywhere in those shoes."

"That's Pepper," says Rhodey, and the couple of seconds of silence before he says anything speaks volumes. He rests his arm on the little ledge in the bulkhead; glances at Kaylee. "She was Tony's personal assistant for a long time."

Cautious: "Yeah?"

"Yeah. She was from Regina; died of Bowden's malady two years ago." He shakes his head quietly. He looks troubled; all kinds of concerned. "I didn't know he kept a capture of her."

"_Lăotiān, bù_, that's _awful_," she says, quieter, and she means it; half-wishes she hadn't brought it up but needing to see it all the way through now. "Were they – were they real close?"

"They were dysfunctional; that's what they were," Rhodey says, and it comes quick and easy enough that there's no doubt it used to be a regular refrain. "They d—" He stops; looks straight at her. "I'm trusting that you're gonna keep all this to yourself."

She shoots him a frank look. "Who'm I gonna tell?"

Rhodes exhales; it's not quite a laugh, but it's a breath of amusement. "You know the nice thing about you? You really mean that."

Kaylee isn't entirely sure that's a compliment. Her eyes flick down and away. After a second: "So. We turnin' this boat around yet?"

"Another couple of minutes," says Rhodey's voice. She doesn't look at him. "Neither of them had any family."

Kaylee looks at him.

"Just – each other." He's staring out into space, a foot up on the edge of the control panel. "Except that would have been a pretty messed up family, if you know what I mean."

"…No," she says, carefully. "Ain't sure I do."

"She was good for him, you know? She had a backbone like you wouldn't believe. She's the only person I've ever seen come _close_ to shame Tony into doing something." Rhodey's smiling a little; Kaylee thinks Tony wasn't the only one who was fond of this woman. " 'Cept Tony's – Tony, when it comes to people. And I don't think Pepper was a hundred percent immune to it."

Kaylee watches him. "An' Tony?"

The question snaps him out of it; he gives her a steady look. "You'd have to ask him that yourself," says Rhodey, and she thinks, _Well, he's got a picture of her in his desk._

"_Hăo_," she says. She sneaks a glance at him. "Sorry for bein' nosy. I don't mean—"

"Yes, you do." He's almost smiling, so she figures he isn't mad.

She shoots him a look, her eyes dancing. "You a reader now, Rhodey?"

"You saying I wasn't one to begin with?" Rhodes counters, and Kaylee laughs.

* * *

  
_Twelve months_.

"I have to fit this conduit into the socket," says Tony, without looking out of the panel he's got his head half-in. "It's a very delicate operation, and it's not helped by all the staring you're doing."

"I'm not starin'," Kaylee says, grinning, leaning back in a workshop chair with her feet up on a gutted suspension cortex. She pops a bite of ginger in her mouth and takes another look at Tony's rear, which is all she can currently see of Tony. "I'm appreciatin' _Scomparto di Cognoscenti_'s _shuài tiān cái_ of the year." She tilts her head consideringly; grinning fit to beat the band and trying desperately not to laugh. "I never seen you in this light before." She has a bag of candied ginger in hand, a stylus holding together her bun with another behind her ear, and several pronounced smears of paint and oil across her arms and face.

"As generous as that fine, fine pile of trash is with its compliments, you're not appreciating. You're ogling," says Tony's voice, and the irritated note in it confirms it: as much as he likes all the attention, he's actually getting tired of people calling about the gossip magazine's annual "Who's Hot and Who's Not" column. Will wonders never cease. "Ordinarily, I wouldn't begrudge you a good ogle, but I need my concentration. I'd generally prefer not to blow up today."

"Oglin'." Kaylee considers this very seriously, eating another piece of ginger. She graciously lets him off the hook about the newsfeed capture still sitting on the table, blinking its sparkly text about _BEAUTIFUL BILLIONAIRE BUSINESSMAN BACHELOR ANTHONY STARK_. "That's a funny word."

"Yeah." There's a grunt and he starts wriggling backward out of the access panel. "I've always been partial to it myself." She throws ginger at him and it bounces off his hip. He turns enough to shoot her a look. "I'm _sorry_, have I done something to displease you? Talked you through rebuilding an integrated circuit model, been a thoughtful coworker, signed your paycheck on time?"

"I was enjoyin' that view, Mr. _Tiān Cái_" Kaylee says, and she might almost succeed in coming off petulant, if she wasn't grinning so hard at him.

Tony stands up – Kaylee very kindly pretends she doesn't hear his knee pop – and starts coming in her direction. "What," he says, "is there something wrong with this one?" He gestures from his face to his chest. His eyes are unswervingly on hers. He's wearing a tank top, his hair slicked back and his bare arms streaked with grease.

"No," she says, watching that sauntering approach, and her resolve for teasing almost fails her, "I like it fine. Guess it'll do in a pinch."

"In a pinch, huh," he says, his voice low, and he's got one hand on the table to the side of her and the other on the back of her chair. He's looming over her, leaning in, and Kaylee's smirk drops away along with the piece of candied ginger in her hand. Tony takes the bag from her and puts it on the table. He smells like engines and paint thinner and sweat. "That's it? Just a pinch."

"A, a pull might do okay, too." There's heat crawling down the back of her neck and some horrified part of her is dimly aware of the fact that she's babbling. "Or a push." He lowers his chin, painfully slow; Kaylee raises her face and closes her eyes, sure this is finally gonna be it – and then the air is colder, and she opens her eyes to find that he has walked away.

Over his shoulder: "I don't believe in perpetuating the cycle of violence against women." He waves a hand. "It's a thing. Pushing, pulling, pinching—" He shakes his head.

Kaylee stares after him for a long minute, and then her expression turns furious. "Oh yeah? Well maybe _I_ don't believe in associatin' with men. 'Specially the kind that're _shēng míng láng jí de_."

"_Shēng míng láng jí de_?" Tony repeats, turning as he wipes his hands clean. "You mispronounced, Frye; I'm surprised at you. Your diction is usually unparalleled. I think you mean _shuài_."

"No," says Kaylee, her mouth set stubborn and flat. "I truly don't."

"Oh, come on," he says. "Come on, come here already." He beckons to her. She resists for a minute, then gets up and walks across the workshop floor, shaking her head.

Unimpressed: "What you want?"

"Thought you'd want to be standing close enough to get your ribcage rattled when I open this baby up." Tony grins at her; Kaylee's mulishness is overtaken by surprise and some measure of anticipation.

"You mean to say it's ready? It's done?"

"I mean to say."

Tony throws the switch. The engine purrs like some big cat from Earth-that-Was, all throaty roar, and Tony crows that crazy laugh of his and turns to Kaylee and offers his hand. She clasps it and gives a hard shake, and beams like New Year's morning come early.

* * *

  
**Chinese translations [from [here](http://www.purplebrickroad.net/rp/mandarin.html)]:**  
_Pìgu_ \- Ass  
_Guĭ_ \- Hell  
_Lièzhì_ \- Inferior; shoddy; trashy  
_Yúbèn de_ \- Stupid  
_Gŏu pì_ \- Bullshit  
_Kuángzhĕ de_ \- Nuts; insane  
_Fēngle_ \- Loopy in the head  
_Wánnào_ \- Troublemaker; rascal  
_Shì a_ \- Affirmative  
_Hăo_ \- Okay; sure  
_āiyā!_ \- Damn!  
_Mĕilì_ \- Beautiful; pretty  
_Lăotiān, bù_ \- Oh God, no  
_Shuài_ \- Cute/handsome  
_Tiān cái_ \- Genius  
_Shēng míng láng jí de_ \- Infamous; notorious


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Then they can go hang, because it's my party and you're polite enough for me," he tells her, and then they bypass the weapons detector completely (them's the breaks when you're the boss, Kaylee figures). "Just remember how to breathe and hold onto my arm, and you'll be just fine."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Extras:** [Shenanigans](http://sotto-voice.livejournal.com/395427.html?thread=3234979#t3234979) set sometime between parts 4 &amp; 5\. Other people have also been writing things set in this universe, which makes me shriek every time. LJ user agonistes wrote [Laws of Conservation](http://community.livejournal.com/long_black_coat/3570.html), which she is probably going to kill me a little for linking but that I consider part of canon (between parts 3 &amp; 4) because it is fabulous, and then LJ user copinggoggles and I went back and forth on a [theme that isn't _quite_ canonical](http://sotto-voice.livejournal.com/338459.html?thread=2491163#t2491163) thanks to the inclusion of some _Good Omens_, but that I love anyway.

_Thirteen months_

"I don't know," Kaylee says doubtfully, frowning. A red flower is tucked behind one ear, and she has a whole bouquet of red and orange and pink blossoming out of one bag. She sets her hand on her hip, shopping bags dangling from her elbow. "That's a whole lotta cred." She shakes her head; starts to walk away from the stand.

"_Duìbùqĭ_, _duìbùqĭ_ _duìbùqĭ_," the seller calls after her, and Kaylee allows herself a tiny, satisfied smile before she turns around. "I can see that you're a woman of discerning taste."

"So I been told," Kaylee allows cheerfully, easing through the crowd to stand in front of the brightly-decorated stall. Scarves, flags, and signs flutter in the breeze through the narrow marketplace, along with the smells of _baozi_, _chǎo nián gāo_, lemon squares, and other unidentifiable but mouth-watering foods. It's all thoroughly dirty and disreputable; the market pops up once a week in this alley six blocks east of Ehrrman Square. Kaylee only discovered it a couple months ago, but she's already in love.

"I could _maybe_ take it down to…" The seller folds his brawny arms over his chest; looks down at his table of wares, then up at Kaylee. He eyes her beadily. "Twenty."

Kaylee raises her eyebrows and pretends to consider it, and then she shakes her head, regretful. "I'm sorry," she says, apologetic and at her very sweetest, "you been real helpful, but that just ain't a price I can pay."

He rests his hand on the crate in question – and he sighs. "Fifteen, and that's my final offer. That's it; _tiān kōng_ ain't the limit."

"Done!" Kaylee chirps, beaming, and she slips a hand into her aquamarine jacket and plucks the necessary bills from her inner pocket, and hands them over. The seller eyes her enthusiasm (and then the bills), but he accepts both and nudges the crate in her direction.

Kaylee stoops, hands on her knees, and peers through the grate. "Hi, _mĕilì_," she murmurs, smiling with all her might, and the gray tabby kitten stares back at her with huge green eyes.

Later, Kaylee hums to herself as she slips home through side streets. It's a nice night, warm, with the buds starting up again on trees; waiters are putting out chairs and tables, setting tables and lighting candles. Kaylee's new scarf, shimmering in various shades of purple, keeps her neck and chin covered against the occasional breeze.

Kaylee balances bags of market treasures in one hand and the crate under the other arm, and she thinks of the fairy lights waiting to be lit and the fine dinner that she's going to cook with these fresh ingredients; the basket that she's going to make up for the kitten to sleep in, and where she left off in a silly-but-addictive drama series starring pink-haired girls who fight evil with sparkles.

Carrying a carton of strawberries, Kaylee smiles at the dusk sky.

* * *

  
_Fourteen months_

"Hey," says Tony's voice, sudden and amplified over the workshop speakers; "Frye."

Kaylee starts; whacks the back of her head on the pipe. "_Gaīsĭ!_" She doesn't have to look up, sitting on her knees and rubbing her head, to know that Tony's jogging down the steps, taking them three at a time. The keypad beeps and the door slides open.

"Ouch," says Tony, all too cheerful. "That looks like it–" His footsteps slow. "—Hurt. _Frye_. Why is there a purse filled with cat hair on the table in my workshop." There is, indeed, a large purse sitting on Kaylee's table. Tony obviously recognizes it thanks to the small hatch made of netting for the cat to look through.

Kaylee straightens up. "Maybe 'cause there's a cat in your workshop," she says, matter-of-fact and shooting him a look. "Thought that was obvious."

"And _why_ is there a cat in my workshop?"

" 'Cause my roof's gettin' fixed and Sparkplug's got to come _somewhere_, and I figured Tony Stark, he don't turn no cute, furry animals out in the cold." Kaylee looks very cute at him, with big eyes.

Tony shoots her a wary stare. "Have you _met_ me?"

"C'mon, Tony," Kaylee says. "He's real cute and real quiet; he's been sleepin' on the couch since I got here."

"It's on my couch. It's on my _couch_? You aren't making a good case for yourself."

"You're a mean old man," Kaylee says cheerfully, flicking excess oil off her fingers in Tony's general direction. She ducks back down under the system of pipes and wiring once again. "What were you yellin' at me for when you came down? Sounded like a yowling herd of cats."

"A herd of _cats_," Tony repeats, shooting her a bemused look. "I just got a wave from Wilmer, so—" He pulls one of those expressive Tony Stark faces.

"Uh-uh," says Kaylee, without looking up. "Whatever she wants you to do, I ain't doin' it."

"Come on. Give me a _little_ more credit than that, huh, Frye? No, but I _do_ have a request to make. A favor, if you will."

For all their talk, for all Tony's inappropriate behavior and what a pain in the _pìgu_ he can be – he's never asked a favor of her, not once, not even facetiously. And Kaylee, well – she's curious, and she owes Tony one, she figures, after how good he was when her nephew was real sick a couple months ago; how he pulled every string he had to get Zackery and Kaylee's sister to Osiris, into the specialty pediatrics ward at St. Luke's. Kaylee remembers how her family only met Tony once, just briefly, with her sister exhausted and starstruck and twangy, and how Tony was the most gracious Kaylee has ever seen him, and not even a little mean.

Kaylee doesn't figure she can ever really pay him back for that, as much as he brushed it off.

She sticks her head out from under the panel, and she says, wary, "Yeah?"

"I find myself in need of a partner," Tony says.

Immediately: "Rhodey." Kaylee hates to throw Rhodey under the bus, but he makes a better partner for Tony's shenanigans. Always has.

"Well, I'm looking for somebody who can charm the pants off potential investors _and_ who's got the legs for a dress, so I'm going to have to pass on James. As dress-worthy as his legs are."

Kaylee stares at him blankly. "Why're you tellin' me you're callin' the Guild for Inara?"

"I'm not—" He rolls his eyes. "_You_, Kaylee, I'm asking _you_."

"—_Me_?" Kaylee's so startled she almost stutters. "It's a real nice compliment, Tony, but…" There's something girlish, young, in the terribly wary way that she's watching him; cautious and unsure. "I ain't a Companion. Nowhere near. Rae or Beth could do better'n I could, too."

"I'm not looking for a Companion _or_ a Rae _or_ a Beth. They're not Stark Enterprises employees overflowing with homegrown cheerful charm and an encyclopedic working knowledge of the transray emitter that I'm trying to sell Roxxon."

"…You mean it?"

"I mean it."

"You forgot about this thing, huh?" Kaylee says, after a second. "Miss Wilmer just waved to remind you, an' now Rae, Beth, and Inara are all busy or've already got dates."

"Yep," says Tony without skipping a beat, shameless to the end. "You in?"

Kaylee eyes him beadily, and then she smiles. "What's in it for me?"

"Anything you want," Tony says immediately. "You name it, you got it."

Somewhere in the workshop, Sparkplug miaows. Kaylee's grin broadens, and she points at the cat-carrying purse on the table.

Tony Stark sighs sharply.

* * *

  
"Don't _worry_ about it. Would you quit – she's worrying about it," Tony tells Happy Hogan, over Kaylee's head as she bustles between the two taller men.

"Yes, sir," Happy says, one side of his mouth tilted upward.

"Rae's great with this—" Lord knows what Tony's hand gesture is supposed to signify. "Stuff. She'll take you shopping, I'll foot the bill for whatever debauched frippery is in style these days – piece of cake."

Kaylee pushes between them again, going back to stir the pot on the stove. "I can pay for my own frippery, y'know. I don't wanna be beholden."

"She thinks she's going to be beholden; isn't that cute?" Tony says to Happy, who clears his throat but can't stop that twitch of his mouth.

"You need anything else, Mr. Stark?" Happy says.

"No, Hogan, I'm done. Run free. Nobody's beholden; you're doing me a favor." Tony swings from one employee to the other without skipping a beat, leaning against the countertop and folding his arms. Shaking his head, Happy Hogan nods to Kaylee – who waves with a drippy wooden spoon – as he ducks out the kitchen door.

"A favor, huh?" Kaylee says, shooting Tony a doubtful sideways look.

Tony's in grease-stained casual clothes, sleeves rolled up and a stylus still perched precariously behind his ear. He stands silhouetted in front of the kitchen's enormous plate windows; the bay can't hardly be seen at night, though the lights of the capital city shine bright in the distance across all that dark water. The kitchen's all sleek shine and low lighting, the pot bubbling away on the cooktop – there's almost something homey about the scene, Kaylee thinks.

Tony spreads his hands disarmingly. "A favor."

"Well," says Kaylee. "Maybe I could see my way to a favor."

"Half favor, half deal. After all, you drove a hard bargain."

"It wasn't _that_ hard. Ain't gonna kill you havin' a cute fuzzy thing in the house, once in a while. Kittens never hurt nobody." She glances away, checking the pan of slowly sauteéing vegetables, and she misses the delicate balance of timing on the pot; water hisses loudly as it slaps against the hot cooktop, boiling over, and Kaylee whirls back—

Tony's right there, close as you please, and Kaylee barely brings herself up short quickly enough to avoid smacking right into him. She wonders dimly just how he got so close so fast without her noticing. Seemingly unconcerned, Tony clicks the heat down a level, stirring the contents of the pot, and the water subsides.

"That's what _you_ think," he says, mouth quirked into a tiny half-smile, suffused with warmth and humor. He's smiling right at her.

He smells real good, like engine oil and machinery and something else she can't place, something that's just Tony and is probably some stupid-expensive cologne or aftershave, and she ought to step back, but she doesn't.

It takes Kaylee a second to remember what they're talking about.

"That's what I _know_," she corrects, her voice low, and there's a real fondness between them; Kaylee can feel it.

"That's because you've never encountered a squadron of ninja death kittens," Tony deadpans, and while Kaylee immediately breaks into genuine, 'you're so _weird_' laughter and takes a step back, she knows: they're toying with the edges of dangerous territory.

* * *

  
"…Wow," says Tony Stark. "_Wŏ de mā hé tā de fēngkuáng de wàisheng dōu--_" For all his usual posturing -- he looks genuinely stunned. He looks like Kaylee hit him in the gut with a pry bar, and then maybe whacked him over the head with a spanner for good measure.

"It that bad?" asks Kaylee from the top of the stairs, a little wry and a little unsure.

"Ignore him, honey," says Rae, leaning over the rail behind her. "Just go on down; the man will pick his jaw up off the floor eventually." Kaylee hesitates; Rae counsels kindly: "Skirts in one hand, railing in the other."

Kaylee does as instructed, running a hand along the banister as she comes down the steps. The dress trails behind her, pink train whispering along the marble. Her shoes click quietly (and she's a little wobbly, but she's worn shoes with heels in her lifetime, and Rae gave her a couple quick tips).

The dress is technically a gown. It's deep pink and satiny underneath sheer layers (that are hiked up a bit so that the pink shows at the bottom) with silvery embellishments arranged in tiers of shimmer. The fabric wraps just below the bust; the elaborate silver scrollwork crawls across the square neckline and the cap sleeves. Mechanic's hands are hidden under long white gloves that go way up above Kaylee's elbows. Her hair is up in soft curls (and that's courtesy of Rae, too; she owns a beauty salon, after all, and she insisted that Kaylee's hair was free of charge) and she's wearing lipstick and there's something silver on her eyelids.

For all the shiny, it's an elegant look; it ain't Kaylee's first choice (hers involved more ruffles and frippery, and bright colors on these _nán wàng de_ skirts), but she loves the pink and the sparkly bits on this one, and how _pretty_ it is. She's cognizant of the fact that she's going in on Tony Stark's arm, too, and that this is the kind of dress a self-respecting woman on Tony Stark's arm oughta wear.

(And Kaylee sparkles when she walks, and that delights her to no end.)

Kaylee's dead sure she's never worn so much money in her life. It makes her nervous as all get out.

So does the look on Tony's face as she arrives at the bottom of the steps.

He finally closes his mouth. "Why, Frye," he says, and he comes forward in time to extend a hand. "You clean up very nicely."

Kaylee takes the offered hand and carefully steps down the last few stairs. "You don't do bad yourself," she tells him, and she can't help it -- nerves or not, she beams like the sun.

"If this is how it's going to be, I need to buy dresses for you more often," Tony tells her. "_Tī wŏ de pìgu_ but you are _huá lì de_. Good God." He raises her gloved hand and kisses her knuckles, and Kaylee _tries_ not to let her heart flutter, she really tries, but she doesn't do so great at stopping it.

Tony just called her gorgeous.

Granted, he also said "kick me in the ass," but that part reassures Kaylee; that part sounds more like the man she works with on a daily basis. It reminds her that this isn't some stranger with perfect hair and a snazzy suit. It's Tony.

"Well," she says, and one thing she doesn't try to hide is her huge smile, "that's right nice of you to say, Tony." She drops a passable curtsey. "_Xièxie nĭ_."

"You're welcome," says Tony without looking away from her for so much as a second, and Kaylee is almost grateful to hear Rae descending the stairs. "And where's _your_ date, Ms. Lacoste?" Tony inquires, absently. "You'd think he'd at least have the stones to show his face, stealing you right out from under my nose like this."

"I'm nobody's to steal, Tony," Rae tells him, matter of fact and fond. "You took so long to remember this thing that I just had to take matters into my own hands. _My_ date's meeting me elsewhere, because the entire 'verse doesn't revolve around you." _She_ manages her grand dress without a problem, but Kaylee can't find it in her to be jealous of it; Rae's Rae, and she seems to take everything in her life in the same steady, confidant stride. Her dress is ivory and gold, with a cowl neck and delicate filigreed sleeves, and heavy skirts. It's a hell of a standout.

Rae pats Tony's arm in passing. "See you at the party, _qin ài de_. Kaylee—" she bends to kiss Kaylee's cheek, "you look beautiful. Tony'll be chasing the boys off with a stick."

Kaylee flushes; she knows she does. " _Xièxie_."

She wonders what that trauma surgeon she dated for a couple months when she first arrived on Osiris would think of her now, looking like this, with these fine people.

She finds that she doesn't really care all that much.

* * *

  
"It ain't too late for you to back outta this," Kaylee stage-whispers. "Bet you could get Inara over here real quick."

"_Inara_ – hi there, how are you, thanks for comin' out – is already here with somebody, I'm sure," says Tony, flashing a charming smile (at a portly gentleman wearing a red sash) in the middle of his sentence. "You're gonna do just _fine_, Kaylee." He steers her toward the stairs with a hand on her elbow. The guard checking for weapons shoots the two of them a questioning look, recognizing his boss, but Tony waves him off. They're only two pairs back. "Just stick by me; all you've gotta do is smile, look pretty, and be polite, and you've already got the second part down," he mutters in her ear, and Kaylee clutches at his arm a little harder.

"What if I ain't – _not_, what if I'm _not_ polite enough for these people?" she hisses, a little hysterical.

"Then they can go hang, because it's my party and you're polite enough for me," he tells her, and then they bypass the weapons detector completely (them's the breaks when you're the boss, Kaylee figures). "Just remember how to breathe and hold onto my arm, and you'll be just fine."

"Mr. Tony Stark and escort, Miss Kaywinnit Lee Frye," the announcer says loudly, and then they're suddenly at the top of the grand flight of stairs, and Kaylee doesn't even care that Tony told them her full name, because she's looking down at the scene in front of them and beaming.

"Look at 'em," she says, delighted. "Whirlin' around like – like bits of colored paper!"

"They're certainly flimsy," Tony agrees, and he's smiling easily, secure in the knowledge that none of the dancers on the grand floor can hear. Out of the corner of his mouth: "Can we maybe go down the stairs now, Kaylee?"

"—_Oh_!" Kaylee swiftly pulls her skirts into her hand, like Rae taught her, and she starts down the steps at Tony's side. "_Duìbùqĭ_, I didn't—" She sucks a breath in sharply, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. If both her hands weren't occupied, at least one of them would currently be covering her open mouth. "_Shénshèng de gāowán_ — s'at the 'verse on the ceiling?"

"What, that? Yeah," he says. "I think Danna Sawyer put that little number together a couple years ago."

"_Āiyā!_" Kaylee mutters, and Tony's grinning as they sweep onto the floor.

Kaylee can't keep track of how many people she gets introduced to. She starts forgetting names after the first five. Everyone in the damn room wants to shake Tony Stark's hand, which means they shake hers, too, 'cause even on the occasion or two when somebody pretends she isn't there, Tony stops the presses to say, "And this is Miss Frye, one of Stark Enterprises's finest," and maybe at first she flushed and nodded demurely, but after a while, Kaylee beams right at these beautiful people and firmly shakes their hands. Kaylee _likes_ meeting people.

When they've got a minute to themselves, Tony snags two glasses off a passing waiter's tray, smooth as anything, and hands one off to Kaylee. The shimmerwine is pink and bubbly, and pretty tasty to boot; there's somethin' sweet and almost sparkly on her tongue. Kaylee's face is flushed (was flushed before the shimmerwine, too), and her eyes are bright and she's trying to look everywhere at once.

"You like this, huh?" Tony asks, one side of his mouth quirked.

Kaylee's attention snaps back to him. "_Shì a_," she says. "Ain't exactly how I usually spend my days."

"More's the pity. You're pretty good at all this gladhanding, especially for a rookie."

"You think?"

"I know. Which is why I'm going to temporarily abandon you," he says. "Just briefly. I've got a few matters to discuss with Andronicus over there; think you can keep up that smile in the meantime?"

Kaylee turns that sunshine smile on him, and salutes with the hand not holding a wine glass.

"Demonstration's worth a thousand words. Wish me luck." He steps away, brushing her elbow with a hand and draining his glass in one long drink as he goes, without giving Kaylee the chance to say a word.

Kaylee pulls a cheerful, slightly unsure face at his back, then drifts toward the buffet table, beaming to hear her skirts go _swish-swish_ on the marble floor behind her.

"Well, well, well," says a voice from behind, and Kaylee turns to find Jim Rhodes bearing down on her, Rae's hand tucked into his elbow. They make a hell of a couple, even in this room; Rhodey's in an Alliance dress uniform, pressed and polished to the nines, and Rae looks even prettier than she did at the mansion. For two people as hardly know each other, they seem real at ease with each other. It makes Kaylee smile.

"Kaylee _Frye_," Rhodey says. "Look at you."

"Look at _you_," Kaylee retorts, smoothing her gloved hands across her skirts, but her pleased smile gives her away. "Pretty shiny yourself, Colonel. Real handsome."

"_Xièxie_," says Rhodey, grinning. "You look great, Kaylee; no kidding."

Rae smiles at Kaylee, warm. "I _did_ tell you," she reminds Rhodey.

"You did." He looks back to Kaylee again. "Where's your date? If he abandoned you, I can throw this in the next time I gotta lecture him about something."

"You ain't even gonna offer to kick his _pìgu_ for me?" Kaylee grins.

"He doesn't need to." Rae pats Rhodey's arm even as he shoots her a bemused, quizzical look. To Kaylee, she finishes, "If Tony left you here all by yourself, I'll be giving him a swift kick in the ass before James even considers the possibility."

"…Hey," Rhodey protests, and maybe it's the shimmerwine and maybe it's just how _bubbly_ Kaylee feels (and maybe it's the indignant face Rhodey turns on Rae), but whatever it is, Kaylee can't keep from giggling.

"No kickin' necessary," she says. "He had to talk to somebody 'bout a business deal; he's comin' right b—"

"Rae!" a woman calls from across the room, sticking a manicured hand up from a knot of well-dressed people. "Rae Lacoste, darling! Where have you _been_ all my life?"

Rhodey raises his eyebrows; smiles, practiced, as Rae waves at the woman, and he mutters, "You know her?"

Smiling back at the woman, Rae says under her breath, "Nope. Time to pretend." She glances at Kaylee. "Kaylee, you want to—?" She gestures toward the little gathering.

Grinning, Kaylee waves her off. "You go on an' make like you know those pretty people. I got someplace to be."

"You sure?" Rhodey asks dubiously, looking like he could use a second wingman, but Rae tugs him away before he can get out of it.

Eyeing the buffet table, Kaylee sidles that way and sets her wine glass down so she can tuck a couple gorgeous, perfect strawberries and apple slices into a napkin. Mission accomplished, highly satisfied, she takes up her shimmerwine and fruit and sashays deeper into the ballroom.

Kaylee ain't the follower of gossip feeds that her sister is, but these people are famous enough that she knows some of their faces. The kid in the violet scarf and the smug expression is almost definitely too young for the glass in his hand; he's chatting up two girls who look like models, and Kaylee's pretty sure she recognizes him as the son of a real famous businessman daddy. One of the girls spinning across the floor with a handsome partner is from a popular serialized drama vid; her character's "twin sister" just died last week, Kaylee thinks, and she watches the actress's red dress flare out as she moves. The actress is laughing, a real contrast from that dead-eyed white-faced dramatic death scene.

"Real pretty, ain't it?" Kaylee asks of the woman beside her, who's all decked out in a confection of tan folds with a complicated bustier and an even more complicated hairdo. Kaylee pops the last strawberry into her mouth.

"What?" The girl's voice is smooth and well bred, as she looks at Kaylee – and as her three friends also look at her – and she sounds a little blank, like she's confused.

"The dancers; it's an awful pretty picture," Kaylee clarifies. "_Huá lì de._"

One of the girls in the back, the brunette, murmurs something behind her fluttering fan; one blonde giggles, and the other starts to smile then frowns ever-so-slightly.

"_Oh_," says the lead girl. "The _party_."

"Yep," Kaylee says, her heart beginning to sink, and before she can stop herself: "An' I never seen strawberries so _mĕilì_."

"They _are_ lovely, aren't they?" The woman clicks her tongue sympathetically. "Poor thing; you must not have seen many of those, wherever it is that you're from." She inclines her head and leans in, earnest and sickly sweet, and she says, "Go ahead; keep collecting. After some time, you may even have enough to send the surplus home to everybody on the _farm_!" Several muffled giggles break out from the three girls behind her.

Kaylee stares for a second, stricken (everyone's been so _nice_; it threw her off guard, she thinks, left her unprepared to deal with this), and just as something mad settles into the way that she clenches her jaw—

"Why, if it isn't Georgina Hayes," says a new voice, and Tony Stark steps up beside Kaylee and lays a light hand on her elbow. "Ladies." He nods to the other three; they and Georgina curtsey. Georgina draws herself up taller and – if Kaylee don't mistake her irritated guess – sticks her chest out farther. "Looking good tonight, Georgie; that's some dress you poured yourself into."

Georgina smiles; ducks her chin and flutters her eyelashes, and Kaylee's jaw sets harder. "Always gracious, Tony," Georgina simpers. "Thank you."

Wondering furiously if Tony caught _any_ of their earlier exchange, Kaylee takes a glance to the side – and she sees the look on his face. She recognizes it from the business-deal-gone-bad or two that she has witnessed pieces of. It's cold and satisfied and very, very controlled; outwardly polite and inwardly about to rip somebody's throat out.

"Seriously, it's great to see that the creatively-challenged still follow the peacock with the gaudiest feathers and the loudest squawk." Georgina's face falls out of its pretty mask, shocked and ugly. Tony barrels merrily onward. "By all means, ladies, carry on. Party always needs somebody to watch while everybody else is dancing." All four of the women are glaring by now, Tony apparently having struck a nerve. He smiles unpleasantly at the three women flanking Georgina. "Miss Blaire, Miss Henrickson, Miss–" He waves it off. "—Whoever your father actually is."

Kaylee, meanwhile, has been bursting to say something ever since he started talking. Now that he's finally stopped, she opens her mouth, glaring mulishly at the lead woman. She gets as far as, "You don--" before Tony grabs her upper arm in a move designed to appear solicitous to outsiders, and hauls her off.

She momentarily considers kicking his shin in with her pointy shoe and going back to give the girls a piece of her mind, but in the end, she takes a couple deep breaths as they move farther away, and then she mutters under her breath: "I coulda taken care of that myself, Tony Stark. I don't need no knight in armor."

"Oh, I know," Tony says lightly, steering her toward the balcony. "I just got there first, and _gorram_, was it fun." His smile is flashy and tight, all teeth.

"They were real charmin'," she says sourly. "Friends a' yours?"

Tony scoffs. "No, thank you. I prefer friends who have something other than three dried beans and some cotton wool rattling around between their ears.

She shoots a slow, considering look at him. A little wondering: "You're mad."

He glances at her. "They were _yī dà tuó dàbiàn_," he says, as if it's obvious.

"You _are_ mad." She pats his arm, some good humor returning. "That's real sweet, Tony, bein' all pissy on my behalf. Maybe I'll even let you buy me another drink."

He snorts softly. "You're condescending. See if I ever insult somebody for you again." They step through the double doors onto the balcony and Kaylee draws in a quiet breath as it hits home just how high they are. It's quiet out on the balcony – it's because they're 22 stories above the worst of the traffic, Kaylee figures; only specially registered craft come up this high, and there ain't so many of those – despite being surrounded by the lights of the city on all sides. It's gorgeous and strange, like something out of a cosmopolitan dream; the kind of place Kaylee never could have pictured herself standing, just a year and a half ago.

"So. What're we doin' out here?" she asks, uncomfortably shaking her arm out of his hand and turning to face him.

"Making sure you don't kill anybody." Tony steps to the rail and leans on it, as comfortable 22 floors up as he is on the ground. He glances back at her, amusement writ large in his expression. "You looked ready to jump at Hayes."

"She was bein' nasty," Kaylee says, matter-of-fact. She rustles over and, after a brief peer over the side, rests her weight on her forearms, on the rail, beside him. "It was a real nice night til she opened her big fat mouth."

He chuckles. The breeze picks up enough to set artfully loose tendrils of Kaylee's updo to swinging; it's enough to drive her just a little closer to Tony, who's a pretty effective windbreak. "Still worth getting your cat in my workshop?" 'Cat' sounds like a four-letter word.

It drags a tiny, warm smile out of her; some satisfaction. "Yep." She knocks back a little more of her shimmerwine, which is still in her hand after all this time. She tilts the glass toward Tony. He glances at her, then gently plucks the offered crystal out of her hand – fingers brushing hers, but not in a way that feels calculated – and takes a drink.

"Tony," Kaylee says, after another companionable pass back and forth. She shifts her feet and squares her shoulders; she means business.

He blinks at her, then drains the last of the shimmerwine and balances the glass on the rail, and turns to face her. Gamely: "Kaylee."

"Why'd you ask me to come?" she asks. "Don't tell me it was 'cause it was last minute; you coulda asked any _one_ of those girls out there, even the ones as already had dates." Tony opens his mouth; she doggedly barrels onward and he is stopped dead in his tracks. "And _don't_ tell me it's 'cause I know the company's product offerings; nobody's expected me to talk to 'em all night."

"Can I tell you anything at all?" he asks, bemused, and she folds her arms and looks very, very unimpressed.

"Okay, okay okay." He lifts his hands in the universal signal for _don't shoot_. "None of those girls," he points at the door to the ballroom with his entire arm, "would have stood out here and shared their shimmerwine."

"And that's a good thing?" she asks, a little doubtfully, and the step in that he takes, the one that puts him well within her personal space, answers _that_ question.

They've been going back and forth like this for months now, and always, neither of them makes the final necessary move. They stop just short and they go on with what they were doing; it's almost become something of a game, albeit a loaded one.

Kaylee's tired of the game.

She fists the lapels of Tony's jacket. He looks down at her fingers for a moment, then half-smiles, the sort of look that she's had directed at her a million times, but never like this, never this close. In heels, she's just about his height; there's something comforting in it.

She watches him, steady, suppressed excitement setting her eyes shining, and then she thinks, _Hell with it_, and leans in even as she gives his jacket a good yank.

Tony tastes like whiskey and the hint of some spice; he kisses like she's always thought he would, strong and thorough and swift. He's obviously been waiting for this, too, because there's no pause for surprise; he grabs her immediately and pulls her close. She throws her arms around his neck. His hand presses flat against the small of her back then slides to her hip – both hands are always on her and always moving, like he can't decide where to touch her first so he's going with as much as he can at once – and Kaylee wasn't shivering in the cold before (and she isn't cold now), but she shivers, her fingers making a wreck of his hair. He cups her face in his hands, which are every bit as callused and sure as she's always thought; she presses harder against him and he makes a low, strangled sort of noise into her mouth--

Then there are loud voices coming their way, and they both realize it in the same moment. Tony doesn't seem to care about their oncoming audience, but Kaylee scrambles and shoves him hard enough that he gets the message.

By the time the drunk couple stumbles around the corner and out onto the balcony, Tony and Kaylee are leaning on the railing, side by side.

"Gorram, honey; we gotta go someplace else," says the man's voice.

Kaylee doesn't dare turn around; she surreptitiously looks at Tony. He's out of breath, she's gratified to see, and he's silently laughing as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Footsteps clatter away behind them, and Kaylee bursts out laughing; covers her mouth with her hand and glances at Tony.

"So." He's looking right back at her. "Would it be terribly presumptuous of me to ask you to come home with me?"

Kaylee considers the question. "Yep."

Beat.

She says, "Do it."

Tony grins one of those wild grins; the kind Kaylee doesn't usually find herself on the business end of. "Miss Frye—"

"Kaylee," she corrects.

"Kaylee, would you do me the honor of escorting me home?"

"Well, since you asked all pretty," she says, grinning, and she takes his arm.

"Hogan, shuttle," Tony says into his sleeve. "Now."

* * *

  
"I gotta ask you somethin'," Kaylee says. Her gloves are off and her dress has been unsnapped and unhooked, but she has her arms clasped over her chest, holding up the gown (at least in the front).

"I'm clean, I take every precaution, and I get tested regularly," Tony recites, sprawled across his giant bed (and it is _huge_; Kaylee laughed for what felt like ten minutes when she first saw how needlessly big it was) in a similar state of half-undress.

"Good to know, but nope. All – this— S'it just 'cause I prettied up?" He regularly has thousand-credit ballgowns lying on his bedroom floor, and they both know it.

He looks at her for half a second like he can't believe she's asking that question. Then he sits up, perches on the edge of the bed, and says, "Frye, I have never wanted you more than I did two days ago, when I came downstairs and you were wearing a tank top and six layers of dirt and machine oil, wielding a blow torch." He holds out his hand to her. "Would you come here already?"

Kaylee beams, and she lifts her arms. The gown drops with an almost silent whisper of silk.

* * *

  
In the morning, Kaylee wakes up alone.

"You know," she says furiously, wearing nothing but a blanket, "it makes it real hard for you to avoid me the mornin' after like all those other girls when I got the access codes to your workshop."

Tony Stark looks up from the robotic arm that he's tinkering with, with the help of Dummy, and finds himself confronted with a so-mad-she's-shaking Kaylee Frye. He blinks. "You're right," he says, after a second. "That _would_ be really hard. If I was trying to avoid you."

"And anoth—" Beat. "What?"

He gets up off the stool, abandoning the simulation that he was running. It keeps running in the background, throwing blue-purple light across his bare shoulders as he comes toward her "Couldn't sleep, so I came down to get a headstart on that shield thing for the Alliance. I figured," and she sees, as he picks it up, that there's a second steaming mug of coffee on the table, "you'd know I was down here." He hands her the coffee.

"…Oh," she says, letting her hands close around the mug, and she feels an _ass_. Her mouth opens and closes a couple times.

Tony laughs and pats her head; she shoots him a disgruntled look. He sobers. "Maybe I should have been clearer about it last night, but I can't make you any promises, Kaylee."

"I'm not askin' for promises. All I'm askin' is you treat me right."

Tony's looking at her the way she's seen him look at particularly confusing pieces of machinery; trying to figure out the inner workings. "And your definition of 'right' is…?"

"I don't wanna wake up with Miss Wilmer standin' over me, tellin' me there's a shuttle waitin' to take me anywhere I wanna go."

"Okay," he says. "That can probably be arranged."

"I'm _serious_, Tony," she says. "I wanna keep workin' here, 'cause I like my job, and I don't want anything to be weird. You keep doin' what you're doin', and I keep doin' what I was doin'. Only thing I'm expectin' of you is you treat me with respect."

"I can do that," he says, and there's something a little less wary, a little more warm in his face now.

"Okay," she says fiercely, and it feels a little anticlimactic, because he's not actually fighting her on any of this. "Good."

"So – would it be disrespectful," he sets his mug of coffee on the table, and she lets him take hers next, "if I kissed you right now? Is that not treating you right?"

"You," Kaylee tells him, as he puts his hands on her hips and draws her in, "are kinda a pain."

"I'm gonna go ahead and assume that's encouragement," he says, chuckling low, and Kaylee goes up on her toes to meet him halfway.

* * *

  
"It's a bad idea," says Jim Rhodes' voice later that day, loud and clear, and Kaylee's smile starts to slip, but it's too late to turn around and go back up the stairs. She hovers outside the workshop door, uncertain. Rhodey has squared off in the middle of the room; Tony's up to his elbows in the shield generator, seemingly unconcerned. Neither of them notices her.

"It's showmanship," Tony corrects blithely. "It'll be bang, wow, in, out, done. Shock and awe. Simple as that."

"This is an active war zone, Tony. It's not a game."

Kaylee propels herself around the corner. Rhodey doesn't skip a beat. "Tell him it's not a game," he says.

An apple hangs forgotten in her hand. "What're you doin' going to a war zone?" she asks Tony, slow and hesitant and very, very wary.

"You know," he points at her with a tool, "I really appreciate that you don't try to pretend you weren't eavesdropping when you were." He cranks the generator's intake valve; he uses some force, because Kaylee can hear it from where she's standing, but to all intents and purposes, he seems laid-back otherwise. "Very honest of you; I've always liked that."

"Tony," Rhodey and Kaylee say at once, with varying degrees of annoyance and worry, and he rolls his eyes mightily.

"This is _dangerous_," Rhodey insists. "You could get killed."

"Well, same to you, sweet cheeks."

"Yeah? Yeah? You know what the difference between me and you is?" Kaylee hasn't seen Rhodey this worked up in a while. His hands are clenched into fists at his sides.

"No," says Tony, in a tone that he must have learned as a teenager.

"I'm _trained_ for this _gŏushĭ_." He's glaring. "I've been in combat before."

"Guess you'll just have to protect me with your big strong colonel-y ways," Tony says absently. "Pass me that spanner."

It's Kaylee who steps forward and slaps the tool into his palm. "The hell's all this about, boys?"

"He wants to run a field demonstration of the SA1380. He _says_," Rhodey shoots a look at Tony, "it won't have the 'right sexy effect' if it isn't tested someplace that's seen fighting recently."

She folds her arms. "Well, _that's_ the dumbest thing I ever heard."

He sighs sharply and finally sets down the spanner. "Okay, Mom," he says; "_Moms_. The big front's Persephone right now; nobody's paying attention to Hera. It's nice and quiet. No fighting, the Browncoats all dead or hiding in their little holes." He starts ticking off on his fingers. "There hasn't been a major altercation in seven months, there are only three Browncoat brigades left in the entire area, and I'll be surrounded by the might of sixteen brigades of the Alliance's finest." He shrugs his shoulders. "I'll be safer there than I am in the back of a personal craft at rush hour when Hogan's flying."

Kaylee's lips are still pursed. Rhodey still looks like he swallowed something sour.

"What? It's already been cleared by General Willkins. You wouldn't want to disappoint General Willkins, would you?"

"Unbelievable," Rhodey mutters, shaking his head and going right out the door and up the stairs.

"Tomorrow!" Tony calls after him. "Five o'clock sharp, bright and early! Serenity Valley!"

"You're gonna be _late_," Rhodes hollers back, and a door slams upstairs.

On the bright side, Kaylee thinks, this kept Jim from figuring out that something's different between her and Tony. Not that you'd ever know it, watching Tony. It's been a weird day. But this is what she wanted, right? Nothing changing; doing her job while Tony does his.

She finds Tony looking at her.

"What," he says, "no lecture?"

"You already know my opinion," she says tartly, coming around to the opposite side of the generator, "and you ain't payin' it any mind."

"I'm paying it plenty of mind," Tony counters, handing her the spanner so she can tighten the loose bolt on the casing. "I just happen to disagree with it. I'll be back in two days tops; try not to miss me too much."

"I ain't gonna miss you at _all_," Kaylee says.

Twenty-four hours later, as she crosses in front of the vid player, the news headline catches her eye.

Her coffee mug shatters when it hits the floor.

* * *

  
**Chinese translations [primarily from [here](http://www.purplebrickroad.net/rp/mandarin.html)]:**  
_Duìbùqĭ_ \- I'm sorry; excuse me   
_Baozi_ \- A type of steamed, filled bun or bread-like (i.e. made with yeast) item in various Chinese cuisines.  
_Chǎo nián gāo_ \- Rice cake, Year cake or Chinese new year's cake is a food prepared from glutinous rice and consumed in Chinese cuisine.  
_Tiān kōng_ \- Sky  
_Mĕilì_ \- Beautiful; pretty  
_Gaīsĭ_ \- Go to Hell!; damn it!   
_Pìgu_ \- Ass  
__Wŏ de mā hé tā de fēngkuáng de wàisheng dōu__ \- Holy mother of God and all her wacky nephews  
_Xin gan_ \- Sweetheart; darling  
_Nán wàng de_ \- Unforgettable  
__Tī wŏ de pìgu__ \- Kick me in the ass  
_Huá lì de_ \- Gorgeous  
_Xièxie nĭ_ \- Thank you (formal)  
_Qin ài de_ \- Dear; darling  
_Xièxie_ \- Thanks (informal)  
_Shénshèng de gāowán_ \- Holy testicle Tuesday  
_Āiyā!_ \- Damn!  
_Shì a_ \- Affirmative   
_Yī dà tuó dàbiàn_ \- A big pile of shit 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Kaylee doesn't like lying to her mama, but sometimes, you've got to do things you don't like (such as: telling your family you're busy when you haven't got a gorram thing to do, or telling your family that the vid window on your comm unit's on the fritz, so they don't have to see how pathetic you look)._

> _I know you are all worried, but I am ok. Mr. Stane sent a wave to say if worst comes to worst he can find me a job someplace else in the company. I was at the house a couple days last week so I've talked to some of the people I met through Tony. We are all hoping and just waiting to see what happens._
> 
> _Sorry this is so short. I'm real busy and need to get back._

  


Kaylee doesn't like lying to her mama, but sometimes, you've got to do things you don't like (such as: telling your family you're busy when you haven't got a gorram thing to do, or telling your family that the vid window on your comm unit's on the fritz, so they don't have to see how pathetic you look).

She doesn't have anything else to say in the text wave. She sets her jaw determinedly and lowers her fingers to the touchscreen again.

> _I'll send another wave s--_

  
Someone knocks on her door. She glances across the tiny sitting room, then folds up the comm unit, raises a hand to twist her hair back with the stylus she was using, and crosses the room. The apartment is tiny. It's not the one that Miss Wilmer installed her in all those months ago; Kaylee decided right quick that that place was too fancy and too big, in too snooty of a neighborhood. Four months in, she went and found a cozy little place in a well-loved building off Ehrmann Square.

She's grateful for the interruption, no matter who it's going to be when she opens the door. It means she's lying to her family just a little less (she really did have to stop writing, she reasons: someone was at the door). She tucks loose hair behind her ear and she switches off the newsfeed; the muted reporter standing in front of the painfully familiar mansion gate disappears.

Kaylee finds Jim Rhodes standing in her apartment building hallway. He looks like hell, his left arm in a sling and a bandage taped just above his right eye. He's in rumpled combat uniform; there's a burn mark lining his jaw. She's never seen his face so expressionless.

"Hey," he says. He takes in the battered, well-patched furniture; fairy lights, the cat licking at the remains of Kaylee's lunch, which she only made 'cause she figured she should, which is the same reason that dinner is currently cooking away in the kitchenette. Rhodey looks at Kaylee herself, too, with the dark circles under her eyes and her pajama pants with flowers on them.

"_Wèi_," says Kaylee automatically, wooden, her hand frozen halfway to her mouth. He's hurt; she hadn't even thought of that.

"I'm s—"

She can't stand to hear the words _I'm sorry_ come out of James Rhodes's mouth. She thinks if she hears them, she's going to either shriek or start crying, and either way, it's not something she thinks she could stop. "You really wanna do this out in the hall? C'mon." She steps backward; he steps in. "You look like you ain't sat down in a week." He is ushered to the little couch, where Sparkplug loses his prime spot in favor of the guest. Rhodey tries to start it a couple times but Kaylee doesn't let him. "We'll talk after you got somethin' to eat," she calls, stirring the pot in her tiny kitchen. "Not before."

"Kaylee, I appreciate it, but really," he puts his hand up, "I'm not hungry."

"Well, that's too bad for you, ain't it?" Kaylee says, and it's a try for a halfway normal tone but it comes out too tart, and after that, they both shut their mouths.

When Kaylee comes out of the kitchen, two plates in hand, she realizes just how ridiculous Jim Rhodes looks on her couch. He ain't even that big a guy, but the apartment's so cozy and full of bright colors and knick knacks that he looks awkward as hell sitting there in a combat uniform. He's got Sparkplug on his lap and the cat seems to be asleep under his hand. His head rises at the sound of her footsteps.

"Can I talk now?" Rhodey asks, taking the plate from her. Kaylee scoops Sparkplug up off his knees so he can settle the plate in his lap. The cat makes a sleepy noise; Kaylee tells him to hush up and sets him on an armchair.

"Nope," she says stubbornly, picking out a chair. "Not til I seen you eat somethin'."

They eat in dogged silence, the only sounds Sparkplug's purrs and forks clinking. A couple bites in, Rhodey says, "This is good."

Kaylee says, "_Xièxie_. Don't you go thinkin' flattery's gonna get you nowhere," and Rhodey looks too exhausted to smile. He eats methodically, with a robotic rhythm that makes something twist in Kaylee's chest.

Two and a half minutes later, he holds up his empty plate and raises his eyebrows. Kaylee stops pushing her noodles around her plate and puts it on the end table. "_Hăo_," she says, and she folds her hands in her lap.

"We got ambushed heading into the valley. _Heishŏudăng liúmáng_ with rockets, mules, a couple fast short-range shuttles, maybe some bigger stuff-- I don't know. I don't know." He shakes his head. "They hit so fast -- I don't know how many there were."

Kaylee doesn't trust her voice to remain steady. She nods.

"It came out've nowhere. First craft got blown to hell. I got up on one of the big guns, and after that--" He shakes his head again and Kaylee can read the bone-deep weariness in him, the guilt and the anger bubbling just beneath the surface.

"Rhodey—" she tries, because her heart is up in her throat, but he doesn't let her stop him.

"I saw Tony once. He had," he half-laughs, a quiet exhale, "one of those S.E. monstrosity pistols in his hands and he looked as _yúbèn de_ as I've ever seen him. I yelled at him to drop the gorram gun and stay down." He sets his teeth together so hard that Kaylee can see it from across the room, even with his mouth closed. "They hit us hard, real hard, then backed off, and nobody could figure out why."

Kaylee's voice is tiny; she feels as small as she sounds. " 'Cept Tony was missin.' "

This is all some sick dream, she thinks, and she's going to wake up any second. She's not sitting in a warmly-lit room, under fairy lights, with her cat purring on her feet and with Rhodey looking battered and awful on her couch, and talking about Tony getting kidnapped by people who have a whole lot of reason to hate him and to hurt him.

"Yeah," says Rhodey, hollow. "Except Tony was missing." He rouses himself with visible effort; he puts on his game face when he looks over at her. "Look, we've got every reason to believe he's alive. These guys know exactly who they got; they're not gonna throw this opportunity away by doing something dumb."

"Seems to me they al_ready_ did somethin' dumb," says Kaylee, flat-lipped and not buying his well-meaning, thin optimism for a _second_, and then she busts out, "Who _are_ these people? The hell they want?"

The second that Rhodey looks down at his empty plate, she knows she doesn't want to hear the answer. "It might've been a squad of Dust Devils." Kaylee sucks in a sharp, shaky breath; he goes on. "They'd want him for what they can get out of him; ransom, maybe."

"I ain't no fool," Kaylee snaps. She tastes sick in the back of her throat. "They want what he knows, an' you an' me both know what kinda scary people these are, and what kinda gorram fool Tony can be."

"I'm gonna bring him back, Kaylee." He looks about ready to topple over, but there's no doubt he means it; his eyes are burning intent and his face is set in hard lines. "I'll find him."

"--Hey," says Kaylee, softer, and she could kick herself; she just might, after he's gone. "Hey. Don't you go blamin' yourself now, Colonel."

The look that he shoots her is sharper than the ones she's used to getting from Jim Rhodes. He says, "I'm gonna find him."

"… Hold up, you're goin' _back_ there?" Kaylee shakes her head swiftly, white-faced. "You can't go back there. You got plasters and bandages everywhere."

"I put myself on the transport leaving in two days. I'm fine."

"You ain't _fine_; you're _grievin'_, and you're about to do something real _dumb_."

"I am _doing_ what's _right_\--"

"You got a broken arm! An' all those bandages--"

"One, _one_ bandage--"

"An' you still got burns on your face an'--" Kaylee stops dead. They stare at each other for a moment, Kaylee silent with realization and Rhodey with resignation. He looks down at his hand and finds that he's been gesturing with his fork, which he sets on the coffee table with a quiet _clink_.

"An' the plaster on your head," she says, slow. "You get concussed? That why you didn't send word?"

He looks ready to object to the rest – but nods reluctantly, just once. "Yeah. They shipped me off to a field hospital. By the time they let me do a damn thing it was all over the feeds, and–" The frustration bleeds out of his voice and his expression. His shoulders slump. Quieter, he tells her: "I wanted to explain. Face to face."

"And now you explained," Kaylee says, gentle. All at once, she scoots from her chair over to the sofa. She sits down with him and places a hand on his knee. "_Xièxie_, Jim."

Rhodey bows his head, silent. Kaylee ignores the way that it feels like her throat is closing up, and she squeezes his knee as hard as she dares.

* * *

  
**Chinese translations [as always, from [here](http://www.purplebrickroad.net/rp/mandarin.html)]:**

_Wèi_ \- Hey  
_Xièxie_ \- Thanks  
_Hăo_ \- Okay; sure  
_Heishŏudăng liúmáng_ \- Bastard(s); gangster asshole  
_Yúbèn de_ \- Stupid


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony comes home from Serenity Valley a changed man.

It's been seventeen months, two weeks, and four days since Tony Stark landed on Three Hills.

Now Kaylee fidgets on a different airstrip, tugging at her sleeves. She looks like hell, she knows -- red eyes, dark circles, her hair flying all over the place in the wind from the engines of the shuttle setting down. Military issue, she thinks wildly; medium-range, Blue Sun manufacture. She raises a hand over her eyes, shielding them from the sun and pelting grit.

She knows she's jiggling in place. She's trying, hard, to stop her hands from shaking. Happy's standing behind her, his hands clasped in front of him. There are a couple other guys in sunglasses and dark suits; Kaylee wants their implacability, their steadiness, for herself. She doesn't know how Happy does it.

The ramp begins to lower, agonizingly slow. The right servomotor's squeaking like hell; it could use half a can of lube, maybe a replacement piston—

Tony Stark looks real small on that huge ramp, and pale. His right arm's in a sling. Kaylee sucks a breath in through her teeth and holds it; doesn't notice her fingernails cutting into her palm. His suit is too big. He looks small. That's something Kaylee never thought she'd think about Tony "Larger than Life" Stark. But he's got his head up high, leaning on Rhodey (Rhodey, whose uniform is crisp and perfect and whose arm is out of the sling she'd last seen him in, but who looks like the same kinda hell Kaylee feels like, and like he ain't ever planning on letting Tony out of his sight anytime soon). Tony's hair is neat and his eyes are as clear as she's ever seen 'em.

Rhodey mutters something and they both glance down as one as they step off the ramp. Tony takes one look at the waiting medical stretcher and attendants making their way over, and he waves it off. "Are you kidding me with this? Get rid of them."

Rhodey motions away the medical technicians; by the time he looks back, Tony has escaped his grip and he's coming toward Kaylee. Tony stops a few meters away and peers at her in his old familiar way. "Your eyes are red," he says. "A few tears for your long-lost boss?"

"Nope." Kaylee's eyes are brimming over; there's a tremor in her voice and her fingers have gone numb. "Lotsa dust on this field."

He looks at her for a long moment, Kaylee standing there with her hands clenching and unclenching, her mouth wobbling uncontrollably. Then Tony opens his left arm wide and crooks his finger at her. "Come on," he says, resigned. "I know you want to. Let's get this over with."

Kaylee beams shakily and folds into him, mindful of the sling after he grunts when she bumps it. She hugs him real careful at first, but when he doesn't give any indication of pain or fade away under her grip, she hugs him for real. She's got her arms around him, clenched hands making a mess of his suit jacket in the middle of his back, and her face buried in his shoulder. He smells like new clothes and metal, and, she realizes belatedly (absently), he's holding her almost as tight as she is him. It's just for a second, and then he's patting her shoulders the way he has the time or two she's hugged him in the past. But that quick one-armed hug was a strong, strong thing.

There's something under his shirt in the center of his chest, hard and circular against her breasts, and Kaylee remembers what it is that Rhodey said in the short wave that she got a couple hours ago. _He's hurt, Kaylee; he rigged up some – he rigged something to keep shrapnel out of his heart. You've got to see it to believe it. It's a miniature version of a—_

Her eyes widen and she draws back and finds the outline of the thing with her hand; it's smooth and unyielding even through several layers of shirts. Her wide, questioning eyes flick up to his, but he stiffens the second that she touches it and Kaylee swiftly pulls her hand back.

"Now's not exactly the time or the place, Frye," Tony says, terse and under his breath, and _that_ ain't the man who left for Serenity Valley three months ago, not those hard lines or those hunched shoulders, or that swift, hunted glance from side to side.

"No," she says, shaken and trying to sound like she's not (and doing a poor job of it). "No, of course it ain't. _Duìbùqĭ._ It's real good to see you, though. _Real_ good."

"Well, it's good-real-good to be back," Tony says, flippant as ever but he looks too tired still to be the Tony of old; too haunted deep in his eyes. He raises his voice. "Where's Wilmer? I can't believe I'm saying this, but I need Wilmer. Where's she lurking?"

Wilmer steps out of the backseat, all long legs and constrained caution. "Welcome back, sir," she starts to say, but Tony brushes past her, crooking a finger at Kaylee over his shoulder. _That_ hasn't changed a bit, him forgetting himself and ordering her around, but Kaylee's too worried for it to do much but set her teeth a little on edge. "Wilmer, I need you to schedule a press conference, and Hogan, on the way, we're stopping for _bao_." He steps into the waiting personal craft.

A _press conference_? Kaylee shoots a look back at Rhodey, her level of concern ratcheted right the hell up, but he doesn't seem to have heard; he's in close conversation with the pair of medics who'd tried to take Tony away on the grav-stretcher. Setting her shoulders and steeling herself, Kaylee sinks into the passenger seat of the personal craft, and is almost too distracted to remember to nod her thanks to Happy when he shuts the door for her.

* * *

"Was quite a show, what you put on this afternoon," Kaylee says to the sound of the newsfeed as she comes down the stairs. She figures he's jumpy. She figures she better announce her presence.

"Hm," says Tony, and as the workshop comes into view, he's leaning over the blank imaging table. He has nothing at hand, its lights are out -- Kaylee can't shake the immediate instinct that he was working on something and shut it off real quick when he heard her coming, which would be _stupid_, what with all the proprietary, scandalous _ gŏushĭ_ she's seen and kept her mouth shut about.

She feels a little stab of hurt.

"Good to hear my skills haven't eroded with captivity," he says, too lightly, and he's jiggling a stylus back and forth between thumb and forefinger. Kaylee is almost entirely certain that it's an unconscious gesture.

She tries not to cringe; steps farther into the workshop, nice and slow, and tries a different tack. "How was Rhodey?"

"--ilians have been caught in the crossfire between Independent fighters and Alliance forces," says the tinny female voice, and Kaylee can't stop her eyes from flicking toward the feed. "The death count has been estimated in the hundreds and it rises by the hour. The local government is attempting to evacuate the population, but in the meantime, the battle rages on. This is Tian Xui Li, reporting live from--"

Tony flicks off the feeds and finally glances her way. "Fine," he says shortly. "He's just dandy." He tosses his stylus up and catches it.

"You two fight?" Kaylee asks carefully. When he shoots her a sharp look, she resolutely does not allow her hands to clench into fists. "Behooves me to know, seein' as how I got to work with both of you."

"Yes," he says, "it behooves me to inform you that yes, we fought."

Tony never gets real bothered by their spats, proud as sin as he is. Rhodey's always okay in Tony's book, no matter what Rhodey says or does, and as mad as Rhodey gets sometimes, the opposite's true, too. So any conversation with Rhodey that gets that bitter, brittle note in Tony's voice, that far-off, mad look in his eyes … it puts Kaylee on the alert. It sets her nerves on edge.

"_Mom_ doesn't approve of my career change," Tony says, clipped.

"Well, it _is_ losin' him his job," Kaylee says, reasonable and gentle. "Bein' a Fed liaison to S.E. an' all. Ain't much for him to liaise with, you quit makin' weapons."

"You know, I'm pretty sure one job is a _fairly_ inconsequential thing in the face of millions of lives." Kaylee knows immediately from his tone of voice that she just made a critical error and it's too late to take it back; she can't contain her wince, and that just seems to irritate him all the more. Tony steps back from the imaging table, folding his arms. "I'm doing the right thing here. Nobody seems to care about that."

"You _are_ doin' the right thing, and _I_ care." Kaylee's voice determinedly does not wobble. "Rhodey cares, too." At Tony's scoff and disgusted turn away, Kaylee's eyes narrow and she steps forward, her hands curling into unnoticed fists at her sides. "We _both_ care, Tony; we both had to deal, not knowin' what happened to you, for months. You know what kinda life that is? A gorram _yī dà tuó dàbiàn_ one, that's what!"

Tony is watching her now, his face inscrutable and eyes hooded, one hand resting on his opposite elbow and the other holding the glass of water (what Kaylee really hopes is water) he'd just reached for.

"So I'm _sorry_ if maybe either of us is kinda raw right now."

He arches an eyebrow in a show of indifferent amusement (barely covering something deeper, something madder), and Kaylee doesn't recognize that expression. She can almost feel the chill from across the room. "You two are presenting quite the united front; let me guess – he started dating _you, too_ right after I disappeared out of the capture frame."

"Now you're bein' a _chŭnrén_ just 'cause you can," Kaylee tells him, flat, and she folds her arms over her chest. "Rhodey an' Rae got with each other in the first place 'cause they missed the hell outta you. You're bein' nasty, to _all_'ve us, and I ain't gonna keep my mouth shut about it just 'cause you been gone." She wills her lips to stay set in one firm line; she stares right at him, and then she says: "Quit it."

"I'm—" For a brief second, his eyes flash; his voice raised. Kaylee thinks he's gonna yell, and as ugly as it all is and as bad of a feeling as it sets to squirming in her chest, she's almost relieved – Tony's _not_ okay, he's really not, and at least when he's yelling, he's not pretending nothing ever happened in Serenity Valley.

And then his mouth snaps shut, and she knows: he has closed down again. "Will that be all, Miss Frye?"

She folds her arms. "The hell's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"It _means_ that I think you could use a week's vacation. Starting an hour ago."

"...You ain't serious." Kaylee's initial reaction could have gone a lot of ways, she later figures – mad, rejected, wounded, betrayed – but the first thing she feels is incredulous. "You're changin' the focus of the company _entirely_ and you got no idea what we been doin' lately and you been _missing_ the last three months, and you want me to go have sparkly drinks by a pool somewhere?"

"Yep," says Tony, pretending to think about it for barely half a second. "That sounds about right." Kaylee has never seen this expression before on Tony; it's intent and cold. It's like she's looking at a stranger.

She counts to five. She doesn't say the first thing that comes to mind, or the second, or even the third. She stands in the doorway, white and furious (and afraid – _I don't wanna leave you alone like this in this big old house, you chŭnrén_, she thinks, and _lăotiān Yé, what did they do to you_), and she says, "I don't particularly wanna talk to you right now," and she grabs her bag off the nearest table, turns around, and goes up the stairs.

"That's _fine by me!_" Tony hollers after her.

Upstairs, Kaylee yanks her jacket out of the closet with more force than is strictly required and she jams her sleeves into it. The fountain cascades continually, water tumbling from the second floor to land in the pool on the first. Kaylee stands in the middle of the giant living room and feels very small. _He don't mean it_, she tells the lump in her throat. _He's goin' through a tough time. You don't know what got done to him. You can't help him, and that ain't your fault._

"Jarvis?" she says. Her voice comes out shaky; she clears her throat.

"Yes, Miss Frye?"

"Keep an eye on Tony, would you? I mean – not an _eye_, not literal-like, but – talk him outta doin' anything dumb." Who's she kidding; nobody can talk Tony out of doing stupid things, and especially not the artificial intelligence that _he_ created. "Or at least call me if somethin' goes real wrong," she finishes lamely.

"Certainly, Miss Frye," Jarvis's voice says. "I'll find you at the usual coordinates?"

"No umbrella drinks or poolboys for me," she murmurs quietly, and it isn't anywhere near as wistful as it ought to be.

"I'm sorry?"

"Usual coordinates, Jarvis," Kaylee says, and she doesn't look back as she shuts the enormous front door behind her.

* * *

When Kaylee waves Rhodey, it takes four tries to get him on the channel and he only tells her – his voice clipped and his face as serious as she's ever seen it – he can't talk about it.

* * *

Tony says, "Hey," voice low and quiet and distracted, no games and no airs.

"... _Wèi_," Kaylee says, equally soft, as she takes the first few slow steps into the cavernous workshop. It's eerily silent. No music, no clanking, no pounding, no talking. Just her heartbeat and the well-oiled quiet whir of Dummy's gears.

Tony stands some fifty feet away, with a table, a desk, some machinery, and some open space separating them; he's barefoot and wearing only sleeping pants, which ain't nothing Kaylee's never seen before. The new part is the glowing blue circle embedded in the center of his chest. She categorizes the parts and the concept in her head lightning fast, without thinking about it. Scrap metal, hurried unprofessional wirework, copper wiring, some kind of glass alloy, palladium, and then she gets stuck on the network of terrible raised scars and blue-purple-black bruises ringing the reactor, and she would swear her own heart stops for a second.

Some of her roiling distress must show through in her expression, because Tony says, "_Bù kĕ néng_. I'm not gonna explode." He raps the reactor's faceplate with three knuckles – transparisteel, Kaylee thinks numbly, from the sound of it – and sets down the delicate tool he'd been holding onto. Perched in front of him, its metal "wrist" rotating, Dummy chirps an inquisitive noise, and Tony shakes his head. "All set. Sleep mode."

As Dummy backs away several feet and powers down with a low whine, Kaylee takes a couple steps forward, her arms crossed over her chest out of some sense of protectiveness; to keep herself from surging forward and touching that reactor all over, getting a sense of how it works and what in the _guĭ_ she can do to improve it so it doesn't hurt him. "You waved me," she points out, equal parts caution and mulishness.

"I need your hands." When Kaylee just looks at him, unmoving, he reaches over on the table and picks up another glowing blue hunk of machinery. This one has all the interior tubing and wires spilling out, Tony's literal heart in his own hands. "This," he lightly shakes the reactor, "is the new model; the one _not_ designed in a cave and built with scraps. It needs to replace the original. My hands are too big for the job, and Dummy's name is Dummy for a reason, so I figured I'd go through the list of people I know who have small hands and probably won't use the opportunity to fry me."

_I bet that's a short list_, Kaylee thinks, and then she clutches her bicep, hard, at the cruelty of the stray thought. That last from Tony sounds moderately more like the Tony she knows; it doesn't sound as much like the quiet, subdued stranger who's standing there half-naked in more ways than one. "So you waved me," she says.

"So I waved you."

"I ain't a doctor," she says, uncertain and feeling younger than she has in a long time.

"Good thing I need a mechanic," Tony tells her, and he stands there, his expression unchanging in the faint blue cast from his chest, and he waits.

"Everything's different, Kaylee," he says, after she doesn't move. "It all changed; _I_ changed. I can't go back to the way things were before." His voice is hoarse and more determined than anything she's ever heard out of him.

"What's that mean?" she asks, her eyes on him even as her fingers pluck at her jacket sleeve. There's a thread loose; it'll have to be fixed.

"No more useless _gŏu pì_. No more weapons that hurt people. I have to do something." His face is still too thin and shadowed with new hurts that she doesn't know the causes of (but can guess at, and her guesses scare her). Extrapolating from the look of the bags under his eyes, she thinks he probably hasn't slept a wink in the three days since she last saw him.

Kaylee takes several steps toward him, her boots scuffing the floor, and with each step, she sees more and more marks on him that weren't there the morning he left Osiris three months ago, and those observations alone push her around the work table. They can talk crazy sweeping mission statements later, she tells herself. They can talk about that shiny half-healed burn on his arm and the old dark lines across his ribs, about why he isn't wearing his sling anymore, later. "What'm I doin'?" she asks briskly from directly in front of him, her hands half-raised toward his chest, and Tony gives a very contained, very real smile.

"This one," he grunts, and he puts a hand across the reactor in his chest, gives two tiny twists back and forth, and begins to slowly pull it out of himself, "needs to come out." Kaylee swallows hard but she sets her jaw against the slick sound it makes and the carnage she's sure she's about to see. When Tony gives a sharp tug to yank it the rest of the way out, though, all she sees is some sort of smooth metal. He must have forged it to exact specifications and used it to line the gaping hole in him, and before she remembers herself, she rests an unsteady hand on his chest, her thumb just over the edge of the metal cylinder. The scars are bumpy and rough, the metal cold. His skin leaps under her fingers but he doesn't step away, even though the sudden stiffness in his posture tells her that he isn't used to being touched and he doesn't like it.

"Now what?" she asks, dropping her hand to her side and looking up at his set face.

"I'll need you to reach in and connect a couple leads." He gives her the new arc reactor, the sleek one with the perfectly wrapped wire coils and the trailing leads. "Red with red, blue with blue, etcetera with etcetera, without touching the leads to the lining."

For all the fact that he's asking her to do it, that they spent a thoroughly memorable night exploring each other three months ago and that she's half-lived in his house long enough to see him in incredibly compromising positions, this is the worst. It feels like a violation on the most basic level, reaching straight inside him, and Kaylee freezes, woodenly letting him pass his heart into her hands.

"--Sometime within the next thirty seconds," Tony says. "Or my heart will stop. Not to rush you here."

She swallows a sharp intake of breath and, balancing the weight of the device in one hand, takes up the red lead and reaches inside him with the other. There's something slick and slimy coating the walls of the metal lining and she doesn't stop to think about what it is or what she's doing. She just clips the red lead into place and moves on to the blue.

"You should see your face," says Tony's voice from above her. The rumble inside his chest when he talks is just about the worst gorram thing Kaylee has ever felt. "I'm almost regretting powering down Dummy and his vidcapture function."

"_Don't_," she snaps furiously without looking up – yellow attaches to yellow – and Tony doesn't say anything else. _Don't joke about this,_ she finishes in her head. _Don't you try to make it funny that somebody hurt you so bad that I got my arm so far inside you I can't see half of it._ Green goes to green, Kaylee's hand only shaking a little, and then the heart lights up blue and glowy and she says, "Okay. Leads're done."

"Fit it into the socket," Tony directs, and she does it; she very, very carefully settles it in and on his instruction turns it like the tumbler on a safe to lock it into place, and when she's done, she can't help leaving her fingers there for a few extra seconds. She's making sure it's in okay and that it's working; that his body really is warm under her fingertips and that he's standing here, flawed but real as day. He's looking down at her hands, uncharacteristically quiet and still and serious-faced, and now that the delicate work is over, Kaylee lets her fingers tremble a little.

"I want to have you look at something," he says, and this time, the buzz of his voice against her hands is the regular kind, not the inside-out one. Her chin rises swiftly, and just as hastily, he adds, "Which is _not_ anywhere on my person."

"The 'something' you gotta do?" she asks, finally stepping back, out of his space, and folding her arms again.

"Got it in one," says Tony, and without any preamble (later, she'll think: _well, _that_ deserved a hell of a lot more fanfare_), he says, "Jarvis, put it up."

A translucent red image shimmers into being between the two of them. It's taller than Kaylee (just a little taller than Tony) and man-shaped, hovering a few inches off the floor, and Kaylee stares at it.

 

 

"Boot thruster jets won't be up to spec for flyin' in the black," she finally says, automatic, and through the design's slowly rotating helmet, she can see Tony Stark's entire face light up with the force of his grin.

* * *

**Chinese translations [primarily from [here](http://www.purplebrickroad.net/rp/mandarin.html)]:**  
_Duìbùqĭ_ \- I'm sorry; excuse me  
_Bao_ \- A type of steamed, filled bun or bread-like (i.e. made with yeast) item in various Chinese cuisines.  
_Gŏushĭ_ \- Crap  
_Yī dà tuó dàbiàn_ \- Big pile of shit  
_Chŭnrén_ \- Jerk; fool  
_Lăotiān Yé_ \- Jesus  
_Wèi_ \- Hey  
_Bù kĕ néng_ \- Impossible; never going to happen  
_Guĭ_ \- Hell  
_Gŏu pì_ \- Bullshit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, wow. Um. I think I'm done. Only ... a year and eight months after I started. This whole thing is [Sweeney](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sweeneyagonistes)'s fault, both for prompting me in the first place and then by encouraging me once I started, both directly via words and by indulging me with AU RP shenanigans. (Thanks, Sweeney!) I can't promise I won't come back to this world, since I have a _lot_ of ideas about Tony's three months of captivity (hint: he was held by Dust Devils, and if you've read the _Serenity_ comics, you know the identity of the individual in the crew who was a Dust Devil), what Rhodey and Kaylee were doing during that time, and where the unmentioned _Firefly_ cast of characters can be found in this universe -- and also about what happens next -- but those will likely be one-shots, not 24000-word explosions that take the better part of two years to write. Thanks for reading!


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